
Book-: _L 




WYCILIIFIFE 



LGrczeliei Litli. Bo.sion 



TV by Po^^'er.s ci- "^MJf 




THE ^^^H^ ^ 

ENGLISH BIBLE^ '' 

HISTOEY OF THE TKANSLATION 

OP THE 

Ifalu Scriptures 

INTO THE ENGLISH TONGUE. 



' WITH SPECIMENS OF THE OLD EJ^GLISH VERSION'S. 

'< MKS. H^^Ci^ CONANT. 

AUTHOR OF TRANSLATIONS OF NEANDER'S PRACTICAL COMMENTARIES. 



The Sacred Book, 
In dusty sequestration held too long, 
Assumes the accents of our native tongue ; 
And he who guides the plougli, or wields the crook, 
With understanding spirit now may look 
Upon her records, listen to her song, 
And sift her laws. 



^^etD-i) or k : 
SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO. 

BOSTON: GOULD AND LINCOLN. 
CHICAGO : S. C. GRIGGS & CO. 

1856. ^ 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 

SHELDON, BLAKEM AN &- CO., 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Cou.-t for the Southern District of 



New York. 



J. J. REED, 

PRINTER AND STEREOTYPKR, 

10 Bpruce-St., JN . i • 



V 



\ o^ 



s '' 



r 
5 



PREFACE. 



This volume was undertaken from the wish to 
meet a widely extended and increasing desire for in- 
formation, in a popular form and within moderate 
limits, respecting the history of our English Bible. 
How came we by this Bible ? What were its ante- 
cedents ? In what religious, social, political condi- 
tion of England had it its birth ? What influences 
determined its primitive character and form ? To 
what modifying agencies has it been subjected in the 
progress of its histoiy ? These and similar questions 
are now, in the present awakened state of public in- 
terest on the subject of Bible-translation, asked by 
multitudes of intelligent and thoughtful persons, who 
have neither the time nor the means for searching 
out the answers for themselves. The valuable works 
on the subject, already before the public, are not 
adapted to the wants of general readers ; being 
chiefly useful as works of reference for bibliographi- 
cal students. That of Anderson, (Annals of the 



IV PREFACE. 

English Bible^) though rich in valuable and interest- 
ing information for certain portions of the history, is 
deficient in others ; and it is moreover too volumin- 
•ous, as well as too immethodical, to attract such as 
do not enjoy a superfluity of leisure and of patience. 
It has been my object in this volume, simply to fur- 
nish such an account of the early English versions 
and revisions, as may give a clear idea of their origin 
and leading characteristics, and of the general influ- 
ence of each in moulding the religious history of the 
English race. This design admitted of greater con- 
ciseness, without abridging those historical and per- 
sonal details,, which best exhibit the subject in its 
connection with actual human life.* 

Brief as the work is, however, the labor bestowed 
on its preparation has not been trifling. Indeed its 
very brevity is the result of no little labor. The 
length of time embraced in the history, and the va- 
riety of subjects and of characters necessarily intro- 
duced for its illustration, required not only much 
diligent investigation for the collection of materials, 
but much labor in sifting them, in order to keep the 
work within limits suited to common readers. But 
the task, though toilsome, has been full of pleasant- 
ness ; and I shall count myself happy, if it shall be- 

* From these remarks it will be seen, that a critical description of editions 
and copies does not come within the defiign of this volume. Such a work, I am 
happy to know, may bo expected from a gentleman, whose intimate ac- 
quaintance with the subject warrants the belief that it will be one of great 
interest and value. 



PREFACE. 



come the means of communicating to other minds a 
more livelj^and more intelligent interest in the sub- 
ject of which it treats. No other Christian pfople can 
show a vernacular Bible wdth such a history as ours ; 
so consecrated by high purpose and noble sacrifice^ 
so baptized in the tears and blood of faithful souls^ 
so linked with the inmost life and history of the 
people. At what cost the Divine Word has been 
placed in the possession of the English race^ and 
what it has done for that race^ are matters which 
every Christian and every lover of his country has 
an interest in knov/ing. Without such knowledge^ 
we can neither rightly estimate its value^ nor labor 
intelligently for the perpetuation of its influence. 

The friends^ who have kindly aided me by the loan 
of valuable books^ w^ill please to accept my grateful 
acknowledgments for the favor. My thanks are espe- 
cially due to G-eorge Livermore, Esq,, of Cambridge, 
Mass., for loans from his private library,* as well as 
for other friendly services ; and to Wm. H. Wyckoif, 
Esq., Cor. Sec. of the Am. Bible Union, through whose 
courtesy I have had the use of important works from 
the library of that Society. The volumes referred 
to as belonging to Harvard University Library, were 
examined for me by a literary friend. 

* It is a noteworthy and interesting fact, that this library, collected by a 
layman engaged in active business, contains the greatest variety of rare old 
versions and editions of the English Scriptures to be found in this country. 
Some interesting particulars respecting it, are given in Mr. Farnham's re- 
cent acount of Private Libraries in the vicinity of Boston. 



VI PREFACE. 

The principal works consulted in the preparation 

of this volume are the following : 

Life and Opinions of John de Wycliffe ; by Robert 
Vaughan, D. D. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1828. 

John de Wycliffe, a Monograph ; by Robert Yaughan, 
D.D. 1853. 

The first of these works is not superseded by the second, which omits many 
interesting details of the earlier memoir. To the two I am chiefly indebted 
for the facts of Wicklifife's history, and for the extracts from his writings. 

The History of the Life and Sufferings of the Rev- 
erend and Learned John Wicliffe. D. D. By John Lewis. 
London, 1720. 

Preface to Wicliffe's Bible ^ edited by Forshall & Mad- 
den, Oxford, 1850. 

Henry's History of Great Britain j 4th ed. London, 1805. 

Of this writer the Halle Encyclopaedia (Ersoh u. Gruber's) says: — " Tho 
affairs of the church, the inner history of the people, government, manners, 
commerce, the arts and sciences, engaged his attention to a greater degree 
than they did that of Hume ; and all these he combines in a series of graj^hic 
and instructive delineations, the result of his own careful and impartial re- 
searches." For the character of the Romish priesthood, and the condition 
of England under their sway, this author has been chiefly relied on in the 
present work. 

Henr. Knyghton, Chronica Angli^e, (in Twysden's Scrip- 
iores decern^ Vol. II.) 

Hallam's Middle Ages. 

Annals of the English Bible 3 by Christopher Anderson, 
8vo. London, 1845. 2 vols. 

The materials for tho personal history of Tyndalo and Frith have been 
chiefly furnished by this work. 

Memoir of William Tyndale, by George Offor ; (prefixed 
to Bagster's reprint of Tyndale's New Testament, London, 
183G.) 



PREFACE. Vll 

Introdugtion to Bagster's Hexaplar New Testament. 
Writings of Tyndale and Frith ;' (Works of the Eng. 
Reformers, ed. by Thomas Russel, London^ 1831.) 

EuDH art's Thomas Morus, aus den Quellen bearbeitet 3 2te 
Ausg. Augsburg, 1852. 

Fox's Acts and Monuments ; folio, London, 1641. 

Burnet's History of the Reformation ; 2 vols, 4to., Lon- 
don, 1850. 

The Works of Sir Thomas More, Knyghte, sometime 
Lorde Chancellour of England, wrytten by him in the Englysh 
tonge ; 4to., pp. 1458. London, 1557. 

The only edition of his English writings. It Was published by Rastell in 
the last year of Queen Mary's reign ; and was dedicated to her majesty, as 
an important aid to her efforts for the re-establishment of Romanism. 

Archbishop Parker, De Antiquit. Brit. Ecclesije ; Lon- 
don, 1729. 

Memorials of Miles Coverdale ; London, Samuel Bagster, 
1838. 

Memoir of Miles Coverdale^ prefixed to Bagster's re- 
print of Coverdale's translation of the Bible. 

Lewis' History of the Translations of the Holy Bible 
INTO English ; London, 1818. 

Preface to the Genevan New Testament, 1557 ; Bagster's 
fac-simile reprint, London. 

Preface to the Genevan Bible, and Dedication to Queen 
Elizabeth, 1560 ; (from the Edition of 1583). 

Strtpe's Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer ; 2 vols., 8vo. 
Oxford, 1840. 

Strtpe's Life and Acts of Archbishop Parker, 1 vol. fol. 
London, 1740. 

Strype's History of the Life and Acts of Archbishop 
Grindal j 1 vol. fol. London, 1710. 



via PREFACE. 

Strype's Life and Acts of Archbishop "Whitgift ; 1 vol. 
fol. London, 1718. ' 

These Memoirs of the English Protestant Primates in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, were written by their ardent JKlmirer and apologist, himself a zealous 
High-Churchman. From his representations of the growth of Puritanism 
in the English Church, and the'lneasures used for its suppression, has been 
drawn the account given of them in this volume. 

Fuller's Church History ; 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1842. 

Strype's Anxals of the Reformation ; Oxford, 1824. 

Archbishop Parker's Preface to the Bishops' Bible. 

Hefele, Der Cardinal Ximbnes ; Tubingen, 1851. 

Bishop Barlow's Account of the Hampton Court Con- 
ference ; London, 1604. 

WiLKiNS, Concilia Magnye Brit, et Hib. London, 1737. 
Gell's Essay tov^ards the Amendment of the last Eng- 
lish Translation of the Bible ; 1 vol. fol. 1659. 

Fulke's Defence of the English Bible ; (ed. for the Par- 
ker Societ}^ Cambridge, 1843). 

Whitelocke's Memorials of the English Affairs ; Lon- 
don, 1732. 

Journals of the House of Commons, published by ordei 
of the House. 

Tischendorf's Reise in den Orient ; Leipzig, 1846. 

Translators' Preface to King James' Revision, (Field's 
Edition, 2 vols. fol. London, 1659), and Dedication to thv 
King. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PART FIRST. 

ENGLAND V/ITHOUT THE BIBLE 

CHAPTER I. 
The Bible the People's Charter. Relation of Wickliffe to his Age. 13-18 

CHAPTER II. 

The Papal Army in England. The Secular Clergy. The Monks. The 
Mendicant Friars. -------- 19-39 

CHAPTER III. 

Counter-Influences ; their Inefficiency. Edward III. The Barons. 
Magna Charta. The Universities. House of Commons. - 40-47 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Bible -xA^postle. Opposes the Mendicant Friars, on the ground of 
Scripture. Summoned to Parliament. Argues against the Papal claim 
to tribute. Advocates the exclusion of Churchmen from civil office. Be- 
comes Theological Professor at Oxford. His teachings anticipate those of 
the Reformation. 48-59 



X TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

The Pope axd Bishops in the Field. Wickliffe sent as ambassador to 
the Papal Court. Cited before the Convocation as a heretic. Scene at 
St. Paul's. Five Papal Bulls for his Apprehension. His advice to Par- 
liament. Trial at Lambeth. Vindicates the civil and the ecclesiastical 
rights of the Laity. Eescued by the Londoners. - - - 60-68 

CHAPTER VI. 

The New-Testament Ministry Revived. Wickliffe's Views of the 
Clerical Office. Labors of his "poore priestes." Alarm of the Romish 
Clergy. Fraudulent Legislation. True Apostolic Succession. - 69-76 

CHAPTER Vir. 

"Wickliffe Attacks the Citadel of Papal Influence. The Catholic 
Theory of Communion. Wickliffe's Protestant stand-pouat. Silenced at 
Oxford. Retires to Lutterworth. 77-84 

CHAPTER VIII. 

"Wickliffe's Writings for the People. Originates Religious Tracts. 
Influence of his Popular Writings, 85-89 

CHAPTER IX. 
The First English Bible. Wickliffe's previous labors in Bible-transla- 
tion. Right of the laity to the Scriptures. His Version made from the 
Vulgate. Wickliffe's Death. 90-96 

CHAPTER X. 

Influence of Wickliffe's Version. England's only Bible for a hun- 
dred and thirty years. Its wide diffusion. Rapid growth of the spirit of 
religious freedom. Checked by Henry IV. The Lollards. Statutes 
against Wickliffe's Bible. Its Character and Claims. - - 97-105 

CHAPTER XI. 

Wickliffe's Influence Abroad. Effect of his Writings in Bohemia. 
Huss, and Jerome of Prague. Council of Constance. Sentence against 
Wickliffe's writings. His body condemned to be disinterred and burned. 
Execution of the Decree. Increased spread of his Views in Bohemia. 
Bohemian Bibles. Influence of Bohemia on the Reformation. Wick- 
liffe's Relation to Modern Christianity. - . - - 106-112 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI 



PART SECOND. 

AGE OF BIBLE-TRANSLATION IN ENGLAND. 

CHAPTER I. 

Religious Aspects of England. Wickliffe's Bible, and the Lollards. 
Revival of Learning in the Schools. Spread of the Reformation in Eng- 
land. 115-123 

CHAPTER II. 

Tyndale's New Testament. Tyndale's early history. His youthful at- 
tempts at Bible-translation. Seeks the patronage of Tunstal, Bishop of 
London. Finds that the Bible cannot be translated in England. Hum- 
phrey Monmouth his friend and patron. Translates his New Testament 
in Hamburg. Goes to Cologne to print it. Aided by English Merchants. 
The Bible Hater. Councillor Rincke. Tyndale obliged to flee from 
Cologne to Worms. Change of Plans. The New Testament in England. 
The Secret Search. Fyshe's " Supplication of Beggars." Thomas 
Garrett. Scenes at Oxford and Cambridge. Dr. Barnes' Trial. Burn- 
ing of New Testaments. The King Enlisted. Luther's Blunder. 
Royal Prohibition of Tyndal's Translation. Efforts for its Suppression on 
the Continent. The Bishops on the Alert. Archbishop Warham buys 
up New Testaments. Wolsey as Vicar-General. Trial of Arthur and 
Bilney. Constant multiplication and spread of the N. Testament. 124-150 

CHAPTER III. 

Tyndale's Reformatory Writings. " Parable of the Wicked Mammon." 
" The Obedience of a Christian Man." Light thrown by these writings 
on the State of the Times, and the Extortions of the Clergy. Tyndale's 
View of Church-offices and Sacraments. Defends the Right of the Laity 
to the Bible. Theological Training in the Universities. The Bible the 
only safe Guide. - 151-168 

CHAPTER IV. 
Cardinal Wolsey's Measures to Silence Tyndale. Application to the 
Princess-Regent of Brabant for his Arrest. Imprisonment of his friend 
Harman. The British Merchant takes Reprisals. Councillor Rincke over- 
reached. Tyndale Safe in Marburg. 168-174 



Xll TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

The New Antagonist. Character of Sir Thomas More. His early con- 
nection with Erasmus and the Cause of Church-Reform. Spirit and Sen- 
timents of his Utopia. 175-182 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Reformer Transformed. Alarmed for the Ancient Faith. Distrusts 
the Reformation as Revolutionary. More's inward religious history. 
Characteristics of his Controversial Writings for the People. His funda- 
mental principle, — the Infallibility of the Church. The Church the au- 
thoritative Interpreter of Scripture. ----- 183-196 

CHAPTER VII. 

Shall the People have the Bible 1 More Concedes the Principle of 
Vernacular Translation. Advises Postponement to a more favorable 
period. Grounds of his Opposition to Tyndale's Translation. Contrast 
with Tyndale's Views. Persecuting spirit of the Anti-Bible Principle. 
Tyndale's Challenge Unanswered. 197-216 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Sir Thomas More as Lord Chancellor. The civil power now takes the 
lead in persecution. Royal Manifesto against Heretics. Grand move- 
ment against Heretical Books. The Scripture in the Vernacular declared 
Injurious. Royal Proclamation against Tyndale's Writings. Tunstal's 
Bible-burning. How he obtained the Bibles. More avows himself a 
Persecutor. Defends the oath ex-qfficio. His Opinion of Juries. Advo- 
cates the Violation of Safe-conducts Granted to Heretics. More's Reverse. 
Cannot Violate his Conscience. His Bitterness towards Heretics Un- 
changed. 217-232 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Youthful Martyr. Character of Frith. Friendship of Frith and 
Tyndale ; their Connection in the Translation of the Bible. Frith's Visit 
to England. Congregations of the Faitliful ; Sir Thomas More's Account 
of them. Grounds of More's hatred of Frith. Adventure at Reading. 
Frith Entrapped and Imprisoned in the Tower. His Letter from Prison 
to the "Faithful." Tyndale's Letters to Frith. Controversy of the 
latter with Rastell while in the Tower. Controversy with the Lord Chan- 
cellor. Spirit and demeanor of Frith in Prison. His Trial Appointed. 
Efforts to Save Him. Trial, Conviction aud Execution. - 233-2G0 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. XIU 

CHAPTER X. 

Anne Boleyn : the Royal Patroness. Peculiar Circumstances of Henry's 
Marriage. Wolsey's Intrigues. Henry seeks to obtain a Divorce. Early 
Life of Anne Boleyn. Anne at the English Court. Wolsey and the 
Bishops enter into the King's Plan. Pope Clement's Policy. Henry ap- 
peals to the Universities. Prepares for a Rupture with Rome ; Message 
to the House of Commons ; Humiliation of the Clergy. Marriage with 
Anne Boleyn. Contrast between More and Tyndale in regard to the 
Divorce. Tyndale's Practice of Prelates. Queen Anne's connexion with 
the Reformation. Richard Harman. Tyndale's Gift. Anne's Influence 
in favor of the Bible. Hatred of the Popish Party. Conspiracy against 
Anne. „ . . . . 261-287 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Martyrdom of Tyndale. Efforts to Entrap Tyndale. The English 
Envoy, Stephen Vaughan. Interviews with Tyndale. Sir Thomas More, 
the Instigator of these Measures. Vaughan's Plea for Religious Liberty. 
The New Envoy ; his Efforts to seize Tyndale. The Refonner's Life at 
Antwerp. The Bishops' Plot. Tyndale's Apprehension. Thomas Pointz. 
The Decree of Augsburg. Tyndale's Condemnation and Death. 288-306 

CHAPTER XII. 

Triumph of the Principle. Truth not Dependent on its Champions. Re- 
view of the Progress of the Bible up to Tyndale's Death. Thomas Crum- 
well; grounds ofbis interest in the People's Bible. Matthew's Bible. Its 
Singular Introduction into England. Authorized by the King for use in 
Churches. Allowed to all Classes. Henry's zeal ; stringent requisitions 
in Favor of the Bible ; copies placed in Churches for the Use of the People. 
Its Welcome by the Commonalty. Prelates obliged to Countenance it. 
Romish Dogmas in Bad Repute. Henry's Alarm at the Influence of the 
Bible. Restrictions on its Use. The Six Articles. Character of Ed- 
ward's Reign. The Principle Triumphant. The Protestant Principle, as 
Applied to Bible-Translation. Permanence of Tyndale's New Testa- 
ment. - - - 305-327 

CHAPTER XIIL 

Coverdale's Bible. Reasons for the Undertaking. Utility of Various 
Translations. Character of the Version. Hindrances. Coverdale, the 
Overseer of the Great Bible (Tyndale's). His nonconformity and suffer- 
ings, 328-332 



XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIV 
Taverner's Bible. 333-354 

CHAPTER XV. 

Cranmer's Bible. Early Life of Cranmer. Veneration for the Scriptures. 
Influence as Primate in Favor of Vernacular Translation. Revision of 
Tyndale's Version. Preface. Counter-plot of the Bishops. The Angli- 
can Church. Cranmer's Intolerance. Treatmentof Gardiner; of Hooper; 
of Sectaries and Heretics. Essential Vice of a State Church. Vital 
Distinction between the Anglican and the Romish Church. Progress of 
the Bible under Edward VI. 335-343 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Reign of Terror. Character of Queen Mary. Her Early Misfor- 
tunes. First Steps on Her Accession. Obscurantism Inaugurated. 
Protestant Exiles. Romanism Re-established. Unparalelled Cruelties. 
The Congregation?. Evidences of the Progressive Influence of the 
Bible. 349-360 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Genevan Bible. English Exiles. Spirit of the Age in Respect to 
Bible-Translation. Proposal of a New Version. Zeal of the Lay-exiles. 
John Bodleigh. Peculiar Advantages at Geneva. Calvin's Preface to 
the New Testament. Scholarship of the Genevan Bible. Division into 
Verses. Becomes the Family Bible of England. Causes of its Success. 
Its Agency in the Development of Puritanism. Its Influence not wholly 
Beneficial. 361-3/0 

CHAPTER XVIIL 
The Bishops' Bible. Preliminary View. Liberal Spirit of the Returned 
Exiles. Counter-i^olicy of Elizabeth. Action of her first Parliament. 
The Court of High Commission. The Star Chamber. The Reformed 
Clergy Succumb to the Queen; Establishment of Uniformity. Noncon- 
formity the Nurse of Civil Freedom. List of Dangerous innovations* 
Groundsof Puritan Dissent. Measures of Archbishop Parker. Trial of 
Sampson o,nd Humphrey; Citation of the London Ministers; Oppressive 
Injunction. Coverdalo and Fox. Leading Traits of the Conflicting 
Parties. 371-391 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV 

CHAPTER XIX. 

The Bishops' Bible — Continued, Archbishop Parker the Projector and 
Overseer of the Work. His Motives. Continued Influence of the Genevan 
Version. Anti-Episcopal Feature of the Church-Bible. Parker's Pre- 
face. Scholarship of the Bishops' Bible. Its Sectarian Character. Sub- 
sequent Restoration of Readings from the Vulgate. - - 392-402 

CHAPTER XX. 

The Rhemish or Douay Bible. Translators' Views of Vernacular Bibles. 
Policy of the Romish Church. Cardinal Ximenes. Reasons for this 
Translation. Its Characteristics. Influence of the Douay Bible, 403-403 

CHAPTER XXI. 
The CoiiMON Version. State of Parties at the Death of Elizabeth. Re- 
actionary Influence of Persecution. Prospect of a Puritan sovereign. 
James' non-committal Policy. Summons the Hampton Court Conference. 
Triumph of the Prelatical Party. Royal Epistle. jSTew Translation Pro- 
posed by the Puritans. Motives of James' Concurrence. State of Pub- 
lic Opinion. Hugh Broughton's efforts for a Revision of the Church- 
Bible. The Puritanic Influence of the Genevan Version. The King's 
Plan. . - 409-426 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The Common Version — Continued. The King's liberal arrangements for 
Securing and Rewarding Competent Revisers. Rules of Translation 
prescribed by the King. Principles involved in these Rules. Their In- 
fluence on the Character of the Version. Its Scholarship. Contempo- 
raneous Criticism. Obstacles to its Reception, within and without the 
Church. Measures for a New Translation. The Just Claims of the Com- 
mon Version. -_> 427-443 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Conclusion. 

Retrospective View. Leading Characteristics and Influence of English 
Bible-Translation. New and Brilliant Era of Sacred Learning. Pro- 
gress in every Branch of Biblical Knowledge. Restoration of the Original 
Text for the Use of the Learned. Present State of Scholarship two Cen- 
turies in Advanoe of the English Bible. - - - - 747-452 



APPENDIX. 



I. Specimens of the Early English Versions. 

II. The Immaculate Conception. . - - 

III. The Soldier's Bible. - - - - - 



454 
464 
464 



CHAPTER I. 



THE BIBLE THE PEOPLE'S CHARTER. RELATION 
OF WICKLIFFE TO HIS AGE. 

It w^s a great day for England, when John Wickliffo 
first conceived the idea of giving to his countrymen the 
Whole Bible, in the common tongue. The execution of 
that idea is the leading event of the fourteenth century. 
It would not be too much, perhaps, to call it the leading 
event in Anglo-Saxon history. 

To Wickliffe belongs the peculiar honor of having re- 
kindled, from the ashes of the past, the doctrine of the es- 
sential worth and equal rights of men. His claim that, in 
regard to the highest interest of humanity, all men are 
equal ; namely, in the right of each to know for himself, 
and to obey the will of God ; that here the king can claim 
nothing above the serf, the priest nothing above the lay- 
man ; the absolute supremacy of the individual conscience 
in matters of religion ; this involved the ultimate recogni- 
tion of all inferior rights. 

This idea, which breathes through the whole spirit of 



14 THE ENGLISH BIBLE 

primitive Christianity, had been long lost to the world. It 
was indeed alien to the spirit of the world. The most en- 
lightened nations of antiquity knew it not. The wisest 
and purest of pagan philosophers, who searched deepest 
into the character of God and the destiny of man, never 
attained to this glorious and ennobling truth. Even when 
they come so near it, as to discern a special providence 
guiding the affairs of individuals ; it is still only the great 
men, the patriots and philosophers, whom they deem wor- 
thy of such care. ^^ Great men," say they, ^^ enjoy the 
peculiar oversight and inifluence of the gods ; inferior per- 
sons they disregard." The highest truths, those especially 
which respect the nature of God, must be veiled in mys- 
teries and sealed by oaths from the vulgar rabble, who are 
to be held in subjection by scarecrows and mummeries, 
which the wise ones laugh at. Even their Elysium was 
peopled only by the spirits of sages and heroes. Thus 
were the masses of the human race abandoned, to live and 
die like the brutes which perish. 

"When Christ appeared, there dawned a new day for the 
poor and down-trodden. He made it the distinguishing 
glory of his ministry, to preach the Gospel to the poor. 
The Christian communities, which owed their existence to 
the immediate effusion of his Spirit after his ascension, 
were strictly companies of brethren, with one Head and 
Lawgiver, their risen and glorified Lord. Men from the 
most diverse conditions of society here met on terms of 
perfect equality ; united by a noble and endearing relation- 
ship, whose ties were stronger than those of caste, or blood, 
or nation. What a foundation was here laid, for the pro- 
tection and elevation of the weak and defenceless classes 
of society ! 



THE BIBLE THE PEOPLE's CHARTER. 15 

With the decline of the apostolic spirit in other respects, 
this idea also faded from the Christian consciousness. A 
splendid hierarchy, appointed to rule God's heritage, was 
an institution utterly at variance with the conception of 
the church as a community of brethren. With the growth 
and consolidation of this mighty spiritual power, the lay 
element in the church continually declined in importance, 
till at length the people became the mere tools and bond- 
slaves of the priesthood. 

The aim of the Eomish prelacy was no less, than the 
entire monopoly of all ecclesiastical and all secular rule. 
The vital element of power, knowledge, it had gradually 
withdrawn wholly into its own hands. It has frequently 
been made the subject of praise to the papal clergy, that 
they alone were the depositaries of learniDg, at a period 
when all other classes of society were sunk in ignorance 
and barbarism. Should it not rather be accounted their 
shame ? Who can doubt, that if the hosts of the Romish 
priesthood had encouraged the general diffusion of know- 
ledge, the dark ages would have been ages of light ? Could 
not the parish priest have awakened, in the humble portion 
of his flock, that spirit of improvement which is every where, 
even in the most debased heathen countries, the fruit of 
Protestant missions ? Could not the monastery have be- 
come a fountain of intelligence to all the adjacent commu- 
nity ? Boast not of the light thus hid within the cloister, 
for the use and delight of its few holy inmates ; while 
thousands of their feilow-creatures groped, under their very 
walls, in the blindness of the deepest midnight ! 

But a general diffusion of knowledge, and the monopoly 
of power in ilhe hands of a few, are ideas entirely incom- 
patible wity each other. The power of the hierarchy de- 



16 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

manded the ignorance of the masses. The policy by which 
it reached its end was masterly. When the Holy Scrip- 
tures were taken from the common people, they dost the 
charter (jff their rights as men ; in time, the very conscious- 
ness of their manhood. Thus the great body of all the 
nations of Christendom sunk from one degree of debase- 
ment to another, till they became the prey of every spoiler; 
till the people, the cultivators of the soil, the industrious 
artisans, the actual producers of the national wealth, had 
no power, no rights. They were the rabble, the vulgar 
herd, the mob, to be used or abused without limit or 
mercy, for the benefit of their masters. 

Nothing could more significantly indicate their social 
position, than the scantiness of contemporaneous informa- 
tion in regard to it. History relates the doings of Popes 
and Councils, of Kings and Nobles. But it seems rarely 
to have occurred to the learned chronicler of the times, 
that the condition of the people constitutes any part of 
history. Now and then some social earthquake rends the 
veil, and we catch a glimpse which makes the heart ache ; 
for we see there, spite of ignorance, superstition, and all 
the vices of their degraded state, living human souls, burn- 
ing and writhing under the keen sense of outrage and op- 
pression ; capable, therefore, of sweet affections, of gene- 
rous and noble deeds, of goodness and piety. At some 
new or more galling wrong, outraged humanity has over- 
burst the bounds of discreet submission. The rude mass, 
for a moment, lieavcs convulsively ; agonizing cries for re- 
dress, fierce threats of vengeance, disturb the air ; and 
then it is crushed down again by the iron hand of power, 
to weep, and bleed, and curse in silence. 

Such was the condition of a majority of tlie inhabitants 



THE BIBLE THE PEOPLE's CHARTER. 17 

of England in the fourteenth century. Where now was 
help and redemption to he looked for ? The barons had 
already, a hundred years before, wrested from the monarch 
the recognition of their own rights, the famous Magna 
Charta. But on their side was wealth and power. With 
his immense landed possessions, his castle-fortress, his 
thousands of retainers, each baron was a petty king. Com- 
bination among these powerful lords was equivalent to suc- 
cess. But the poor, unlettered, unarmed populace gained 
nothing by this triumph of their masters. Their only 
hope, though they knew it not, was in the restoration of 
what will ever be the only Magna Charta of the weak — 
The Holy Scriptures. 

Then arose the Man of the Age. Among the brilliant 
and imposing forms that crowd the arena of that stirring 
time — the magnificent Edward III, and his chivalrous son, 
the martial barons, the gorgeous array of ecclesiastical 
dignitaries — stands alone and preeminent the apostolic 
form of John Wyckliffe, Kector of Lutterworth. 

We call him the man of the age, who into a dead Past 
drops the seed of a living Future; who infuses into the 
social mass leavening ideas, which, sooner or later, by their 
inherent quickening energy, work essential changes in the 
inner and outer life of society. This John Wickliffe did. 
The supreme and binding authority of the Holy Scriptures 
as the guide of Christian faith and life ; the right of all 
men, without distinction, to the possession of the Scrip- 
tures ; these are the living thoughts which Wickliffe cast 
into the soil of the fourteenth century. They inspired the 
labors of his active years ; they culminated in that great 
gift to the Anglo-Saxon race, the Holy Bible in the com- 
mon tongue. 



18 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

To US, in this later age, these ideas may seem too ob- 
vious to merit the place here assigned them. Not so when 
first announced. Then, they startled like an earthquake. 
And well they might ; for they struck at the root of that 
vast system of spiritual fraud, by which merchandise had 
so long been made of the souls of men. 

It may seem also that too wide and lasting an influence 
is ascribed to "VVickliffe's version of the Scriptures. A 
work circulated only in manuscript, and at a period when 
so few of the laity acquired even the first rudiments of 
learnicg, cannot, it maybe thought, have made a very deep 
impression on the national character. But when we take 
into account Wickliffe's preparatory labors, for more than 
thirty years, it will be seen that no book, before the inven- 
tion of printing, ever enjoyed such advantages for becoming 
generally known. His conflicts with the Papacy at home 
and abroad, involving political and social questions of vital 
interest to the nation, his preaching and his writings in 
the despised vernacular, and the labors of his " poore 
priestes," (those pious itinerants whom he had sent forth 
over the length and breadth of England,) had awakened a 
mental activity, a spirit of enquiry before unknown; and 
in numerous instances, an earnest religious life. The at- 
tention of all classes had thus been turned to the Holy 
Scriptures. Among high and low, there was that hunger 
for the word of God, whose power to conquer difliculties, 
WG, in this day of intellectual and spiritual fullness, can 
but imperfectly appreciate. 

The details of the following chapters will enable us to 
estimate more perfectly the labors and influence of this 
great man, the Father of English Bible-Translation. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE PAPAL ARMY IN ENGLAND. 

We first find Wicklifi'e in active conflict with the errors 
and abuses of the age, about the middle of the fourteenth 
century. Let us briefly survey the religious circumstances 
of England at that time. 

At the first glance, we observe three leading forces, 
which, from the date of the Conquest, had been contending 
for supremacy in England, viz. : the Crown, the Barons, 
and the Papacy. The monarchs strove continually to 
stretch the royal prerogative into absolutism ; the barons 
to maintain and increase their feudal rights at the expense 
of the crown ; while the Pope aimed at nothing less than 
to make England a mere appanage of Rome. In this 
great game, the Papacy had proved itself by far the 
shrewder hand. Siding now with the king, now with the 
nobles, it had improved every internal division in the king- 
dom, every appeal to itself as supreme arbiter, for secur- 
ing new advantages and a firmer hold. It had now an ec- 
clesiastical army in England, countless in numbers, so 



20 THE ENGLISH BlBLE. 

thoroughly organized and so bound by self-interest to its 
will, as to render the Pontiff of "Rome the controlling 
power in the English realm. This army was arranged in 
three grand divisions. First, 

.THE SECULAR CLERGY. 

This body, including bishops with their subordinate dig- 
nitaries, and the various ranks of parish priests under their 
control, were charged with the spiritual oversight and in- 
struction of the community. To the office of the prelates 
were attached immense landed estates, princely revenues 
and high civil, as well as ecclesiastical powers ; the lower 
clergy, residing on livings among the people, were supported 
chiefly by tithes levied on their respective parishes. 

The corruption of this body throughout Christendom, 
had given rise, even so early as the fourth century, to 
monachism. Their frightful profligacy in the time of 
Wickliffe was mainly due to three causes, all of which ori- 
ginated directly from their connexion with the See of Kome. 

1st. Their exemption, in common with all other orders 
of the clergy, from civil jurisdiction. A clergyman, of 
whatever offence against the laws of the land he might be 
guilty, could not be tried by any civil court of the realm. 
All such offenders were claimed by the Church, whose tri- 
bunals, subject only to appeals to Rome, dealt so tenderly 
with her beloved sons, that the land groaned under the 
crimes of its religious teachers. It was publicly stated to 
Henry II. by his judges, that during the first ten years 
of his reign, more than a hundred murders had been com- 
mitted by clergymen, besides thefts, robberies, and other 
crimes, for which they could not punish them.* Suc- 

♦ Ilenry's Hist., vol. vi. p. 59. 



THE PAPAL ARMY IN ENGLAND. 21 

cessive English sovereigns strove with all their might to 
wrest from them so dangerous an immunity. But this in- 
dependence of secular government being essential to the 
Pontiff's absolute control over his vassals, their morals, 
and the welfare of the country, were of no weight in the 
balance. Thus, early in this century, an effort having 
been made by Edward II. to bring the clergy under some 
subjection to the laws, Pope Clement directed a bull to the 
Archbishop of Canterbur}'', complaining " that clerks in- 
vested with the sacerdotal character, and shining with the 
splendor of pontifical dignity, were tried by laymen, con- 
demned, and hanged, when found guilty of robbery or mur- 
der, to the great provocation of the Supreme King, who 
hath forbidden the secular power to touch his anointed." 
He requires, therefore, that the grievance be redressed, on 
the penalty of excommunication to the offending monarch 
and his kingdom. 

2d. Their enforced celibacy. The native English clergy 
long resisted the imposition of this part of the Romish 
policy ; but were at length compelled to bow to the iron 
system, which sought to bind them to the central power, by 
the obliteration of every tie of family and country. The 
name of Anselm, shine as it may in the history of sys- 
tematic theology, should be forever infamous to the friend 
of humanity, for the pitiless rigor with which he enforced 
this measure. In 1 102, he held an ecclesiastical council at 
London, where no fewer than ten canons were made for 
this single object. x\ll priests, even the very lowest, were 
commanded to put away their wives immediately, not to 
suffer them to live on any lands bdonging to the church, 
never to see or speak to them, except in cases of the 
greatest necessity and in the presence of two or three wit- 



22 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

nesses. '' Those unhallowed wretches who refused, were in- 
stantly to be deposed and excommunicated, and all their 
goods, as well as the goods and persons of their wives, as 
in the case of adulteresses, were to be forfeited to the 
bishop of the diocese."* Succeeding prelates followed the 
lead of Anselm, and episcopal and legantine councils urged 
the measure, till the long struggle ended in the final estab- 
lishment of celibacy, and the secular clergy were sealed to 
utter and irreclaimable profligacy. 

3d. The sale of clerical offices. The claim of the 
Papacy to the control of the English benefices, asserted 
centuries before, but long withstood by the secular power, 
was at this time fully established in practice. The Pope 
of Eome was now farmer-general of the English church. 
He who could pay highest was sure of the place in market, 
whether it were a country parish, or the Primacy of Eng- 
land ; and the buyer must in turn, farm it out in the way 
which would bring the largest percentage on the cost. The 
richest prizes fell to Italians, parasites of the Pope, some 
of whom, though unable to speak a word of English, and 
who had never set foot on English soil, held twenty, thirty, 
nay, some of them fifty and sixty valuable benefices in the 
English church. On the revenues thus obtained they lived 
in magnificence at Rome, and laid up enormous fortunes, 
notwithstanding the large yearly sums paid out of them 
into the papal treasury. The resident clergy who held of 
such masters, must, of necessity, be like their masters. An 
honest, merciful, conscientious priest stood no chance of 
promotion under such a system. Hence, as we learn from 
Wicklifi'e, men who were too poor or too conscientious to 
pay the required bribes, were virtually excluded from the 

* Henry, vol. v. p. 307. 



THE PAPAL ARMY IN ENGLAND. 23 

sacred office, whatever might be their piety and talents. 
Thus the professed ministers of salvation were converted 
into an army of Romish bailiffs, whose great business it 
was to enrich their masters and themselves out of the plun- 
der of the people, and whose anathemas were launched 
from the pulpit against those who withheld tithes, as worse 
than adulterers, murderers, and blasphemers.* 

THEI\IONKS. 

The Monks, known also as the Kegular Clergy, and the 
Religious Orders, lived in small communities by them- 
selves, having taken the vows of perpetual chastity, poverty 
and seclusion. 

We have no right to doubt that monachism was, in its 
origin, a sincere attempt to revive the piety of the primi- 
tive church ; or that it did for a time check the progress 
of corruption, and by the cultivation of learning, shed an 

* " General excommunications," as they were called, which came into 
use about the middle of the thirteenth century, "were," says Henry, " at 
first denounced chiefly against such as injured the clergy by detaining their 
tithes, defrauding them of any of their dues, or stealing anything belonging 
to the church. They were to be published by every parish priest in his 
holy vestments, with bells tolling and candles lighted, before the whole con- 
gregation, in the mother tongue, on Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and All- 
Hallows-day. That these excommunications might make the greater im- 
pression on tender consciences or timorous natures, they contained the most 
horrible infernal curse that could be devised : ' Let them be accursed eating 
and drinking ; walking and sitting ; speaking and holding their peace ; 
waking and sleeping ; rowing and riding ; laughing and weeping ; in house 
and in field ; on water and on land, in all places. Cursed be their head and 
their thoughts ; their eyes and their ears ; their tongues and their lips ; 
their teeth and their throats ; their shoulders and their breasts ; their feet 
and their legs ; their thighs and their inwards. Let them remain accursed 
from the bottom of the foot to the crown of the head, unless they bethinl? 
themselves and come to satisfaction. And just as this candle is deprived of 
its present light, so let them be deprived of their souls in hell.' " 



24 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

ameliorating iuflueuce into the darkness and barbarism of 
the limes. But it had an inherent vice in its constitu- 
tion, — a want of adaptation to the nature of man. It was 
a morbid, not a healthy offshoot of Christianity. For a 
while, the spirit infused into it by its austere founders, 
maintained supremacy. But with the growth of worldly 
power and wealth, this artificial life gradually died out, 
and the latent evils of the system developed themselves in 
loathsome luxuriance. Ambition, avarice, and the grossest 
forms of vice took the place of ascetic virtue. An over- 
wrought spiritualism reacted into a swinish sensualism. 
Monasteries became the lazar-houses of Christendom. Such 
do we find them in England in the 14th century. 

The wealth of the English monks at this period, almost 
passes belief. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, 
the endowment of monasteries was a mania in Christen- 
dom. Lands, buildings, precious stones, gold and silver, 
were lavished upon them with unsparing prodigality. Rich 
men, disgusted with the world, or conscience-stricken for 
their sins, not unfrequently entered the cloister and made 
over to it their whole property. During the crusading 
epidemic, many mortgaged their estates to the religious 
houses for ready money, who never returned, or were too 
much impoverished to redeem them. In this way vast 
riches accrued to their establishments. They understood, 
to perfection, all the traditional machinery of the church 
for extracting money from high and low. The exhibitiou 
of relics, the performance of miracles, and above all, the 
Bale of indulgences, and of masses for the dead,* formed 

* The will of Lord Hastings, made long before his death, and indicating, 
therefore, a common usage of the time, (and this go late as the reign of 
Richard III) gives some idea of the wealth realized from the source last 



THE PAPAL ARMY IN ENGLAND. 25 

an open sluice through which a steady golden stream 
poured into the monastic treasury. 

Of the extent and magnificence of their establishments, 
and their sumptuous style of living, we have a sufficient 
index in the fact, that they often entertained the sovereign 
with his whole retinue when on a royal progress, and that 
Parliaments and State Councils were sometimes held in 
their spacious halls. We must not fancy the English 
monastery as a gloomy, isolated residence, where emaciated 
anchorites wept and fasted, and prayed their lives away in 
holy conflict with sin and Satan. No more cheerful and 
imposing sight could meet the traveler's eye than the 
stately Abbey, with its church of costliest architecture, its 
abbatial palace, its cloisters, dormitories, stables, and nu- 
merous offices, its bowling-allies, fishponds, walks and gar- 
dens, all enclosed by the embattled wall wHh its grand 
sculptured gates ; while outside, clustered the humble 
dwellings of the dependent tenantry, and the broad Abbey 
lands with their beautiful variety of grainfields, orchards, 
vineyards, pastures stocked with well-fed herds, and forests 
swarming with game, stretched beyond the limit of the 

named. After other specifications, he bequeaths to ten conventual estab- 
lishments, property of various kinds, amounting in value to cot less than 
fifty thousand dollars of our time, on condition of a perpetual yearly ser- 
vice " for the sowles of me and my wife, myn ancestors, and all Christian 
sowles ;" to be performed " solenmiy with note, Placebe and Dirige, and on 
the morrow mass of requiem with not«," To ensure a handsome start or 
the ascent to bliss, he further directs that, as soon as notice of his death is 
received, "a thousand priests shall say a thousand Placebo and Dirige 
with a thousand masses for my sowle, in oon day, if reasonably possible." 
Alas for the poor who must begin at the foot of the ladder, aid^d only by the 
stray provision " for all Christian sowles!" How hardly shall they that 
have not riches, enter th« kingdom of heaven ! — so reads this Romish 
gospel. 

2 



26 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

eje.* Within these little territories the Abbots reigned 
as sovereign princes, coined their own money, decided at 
their tribunals all civil and criminal as well as ecclesiasti- 
cal cases, and exercised the power of life and death. 

The Abbey kitchen, cellars, and refectory, bore wit- 
ness to the care bestowed on the well-being of its holy in- 
mates. They did full justice to the bountiful provision 
thus made for their growth and edification. The Abbey 
cook was in great odor of sanctity among his brethren. 
The historian of Croyland Abbey gratefully records the 
pious disposition of Brother Lawrence Chateres, cook of 
that monastery, who, '' animated by the love of God and 
zeal for religion," had given forty pounds for the recreation 
of the convent with the milk of almonds on fish-days. By 
the help of this nourishing little delicacy, " served," by 
direction of the authorities, " with the finest bread and 
best honey," the brethren might hope to sustain those 
trying Fridays, when the bill of fare only numbered from 
ten to twenty dishes. Well might the old ballad sing : 

" the monks o' Melrcse made gude kale 
On Friday, when they fasted !" 

Truly, it was something of a chasm which separated 
these monks from those which Anthony, ten centuries be- 
fore, gathered around him in the deserts of Upper Egypt. 

Their profligacy was equal to their luxury. Those hells 
of vice, uncovered in the monasteries by the commission- 
ers of Henry VIII. in the sixteenth century, were not the 
growth of that age alone. Such as they were then, they 
were two centuries before, and the cry that went up from 

* The lands of Fountains' Abbey extended thirty miles without inter- 
ruption. 



THE PAPAL ARMY IN ENGLAND. 27 

them to the ear of heaven, was like that of Sodom and 
Gomorrah. 

These establishments, with all their accumulations of 
property and influence, were subject to no jurisdiction 
within the realm. Formerly, they had been amenable to 
the bishops of the diocese in which they were located. 
But this did not suit the policy of the Romish Pontiff; 
whose power and gains were best promoted, by keeping the 
different divisions of his army quite distinct from each 
other, united in nothing but their common opposition to 
the civil government, and their common dependence on 
himself. He had, therefore, exempted the monasteries, 
one by one, from subjection to episcopal authority, and 
made them directly answerable to himself. The monks at 
first rejoiced at their escape from the bishops; but soon 
found that they had exchanged their tyranny for that of 
a harder master. Their interior affairs were now under 
the Pontiff's immediate cognizance and direction; and 
neither service nor money could be denied to a superior, 
from whom so much was to be hoped and feared. 

In some respects the Monks were, without doubt, public 
benefactors. The Abbey lands were the best cultivated in 
England ; and furnished an example of good husbandry, 
which, in the course of time, imparted a stimulus to the 
agricultural interests of the whole country. But it takes 
free and hopeful men to be benefited by such an example ; 
and at this period, the burden of political and clerical op- 
pression lay like an incubus on the capacities of the people. 
Father Oberlin, the good Swiss pastor, could change his 
rocky Alpine valley into a paradise as if by miracle. It 
was indeed by a miracle, such as Monk never wrought, — 
the transformation of the dull boors of the valley into 
beings who had something to love, and something to live for. 



28 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

The hospitality and charity of the Monks has also been 
celebrated. Let full justice be done them in these respects. 
Yet at a time when travelers were as scarce as diamonds, 
the tax on their hospitality could not have been very heavy ; 
and the jovial brethren no doubt regarded the news brought 
by the visiter from distant parts, as payment in full for 
his three days' food and lodging. Their charity to the 
poor was precisely such as has always been witnessed in 
connexion with the Romish Church ; a charity often libe- 
ral to prodigality, but founded on the degradation of the 
masses, and the foster-mother of mendicancy with its train 
of vices ; a charity which encourages the vicious, insolent 
and idle, but neglects the modest and virtuous; which feeds 
men as it feeds brutes, in total disregard of their improve- 
ment as human beings. 

The higher dignitaries in both these classes of the clergy, 
by virtue of their great temporalities held in feudal tenure 
from the crown, were barons of the realm, and sat in par- 
liament under the title of " lords spiritual," taking prece- 
dence in rank of the lay nobles. In the summons to the 
barons of the realm for a parliament, archbishops, bishops, 
and abbots already headed the list. They too, had their 
fortified castles, and bands of armed retainers, by whose 
aid they alternately defied the monarch, chastised the inso- 
lence of the secular barons, silenced those '^ shoeless vil- 
lains," the people, in their disgusting clamors for bread 
and freedom ; or, in foreign lands, pushed the triumphs of 
the cross or the quarrels of the Pope at the point of the 
Bword.* By prescriptive right, derived from times when 

* Henry Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, was a notable specimen of the mar- 
tial prelate. When, in 1381, the men of Norfolk rose against their masters 
with the demand, too far in advance of their age to be successful, for " life, 



THE PAPAL ARMY IN ENGLAND. 29 

the superior intelligence of the clergy gave them some 
claim to the distinction, all the high offices of state, all 
places of trust and honor about the court, were in the 
hands of the clergy. In 1371, the offices of Lord Chancellor, 
Lord Treasurer, Keeper and Clerk of the Privy Seal, 
Master of the Kolls, Master in Chancery, Chancellor and 
Chamberlain of the Exchequer, and a multitude of inferior 
offices, were all held by churchmen. 

These relations enabled them to resist successfully every 
attempt to bring them to a political level with the other 
subjects of the realm. Parliament could not so much as lay 
a tax for the support of government upon this privileged 
class, nor try a member of it even for high treason. — 
Grants to the crown, and all the questions relating to the 
clergy, were settled in their own Convocations or Ecclesi- 
astical Parliaments, which rivaled the royal assembly in 
state and splendor. Their episcopal and abbatial courts 
claimed cognizance of all civil and criminal cases, in which 
^' clerks," that is churchmen of whatever grade, were con- 
cerned, even though the other party were a layman ; of 
tithes, marriages, wills ; in short, of every thing which it 
could be pretended was in the remotest way connected 
with religion. 

liberty and the pursuit of happiness," this zealous man of God fell upon the 
insurgents at the head of his armed followers, slew many, and carried a 
great number prisoners to his episcopal castle. Then doffing his armor for 
the priestly vestments, he hastily administered to them " the last consola- 
tions of religion," and sent them straight to the gibbet and the block. Two 
years after, he was military leader in a crusade sent from England to sup- 
port the claims of Urban VI. Being obliged to forego his plan of attacking 
the French territory, he turned in a tempest of fury upon the friendly Flem- 
ish town of Gravelines, and butchered its defenceless inhabitants, leaving not 
so much as one infant alive ; then marching on to Dunkirk, he left four 
thousand Flemings dead on the field. 



80 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. . 

As if this were not enough, they maintained in full force 
the ancient right of sanctuary^ that is, of harboring fugi- 
tives from justice. Once within the sacred precincts of 
church or abbey, they could defy the law and all its minis- 
ters. This usage, first intended as a shield to the oppress- 
ed, had now become the refuge of the vilest criminals. 
Debtors, able but unwilling to pay, thieves, assassins, felons 
of every sort, looked out securely from under the wing of 
the church and laughed at justice. Thus protected through 
the day, they often issued from the holy portals under 
cover of night, to pursue their trade of burglary, arson, or 
highway robbery, not always unattended by such as had a 
more permanent residence in that secure abode. 

Learning had, of course, declined under these influences. 
A clergy who were the mere mercenaries of a foreign 
power, their revenues entirely independent of the will of 
the people, and whose very relations as ministers of the 
church furnished incentives to pride, worldliness, and the 
grossest sensual indulgence, could have no motives to seek 
a generous intellectual culture. 

But to this was added another element. One of the 
essential conditions of their power, was the ignorance and 
moral debasement of the laity. For this reason, not a 
word of the public services of religion was allowed to be 
given in a tongue which the people could understand. Why 
then should they weary themselves in those liberal and 
eacred studies for which their office made no demands, and 
which would bo a hibdrance rather than a help in the path 
of clerical promotion ? In some departments of know- 
ledge, they were indeed adepts. The clergy furnished the 
sharpest lawyers, and the most adroit medical quacks, of 
any class in the kingdom. But of all that properly per- 



THE PAPAL ARMY IN ENGLAND. 81 

tained to the spiritual office, they were profoundly ignorant. 
Multitudes of the parish priests could only mumble over 
the prescribed sentences in their Latin Missal and Bre- 
viary, like the formula of a charm or incantation, without 
the remotest idea of its meaning. The Monks, once fore- 
most in learning, were in a still worse condition. Not 
only had they lost the ability to read those precious manu- 
scripts, which lay entombed in the worm-eaten chests of 
the convent libraries, but the very tradition that such lan- 
guages as the Hebrew and Gr^ek, or such a book as the 
Bible, ever had existence. If a brother, animated by an 
extraordinary zeal for letters, was found copying in the 
Scriptorium^ most likely it was at the sacrifice of some 
priceless relic of antiquity, which had been sponged out to 
furnish the Vandal scholar parchment for the absurd Saint- 
Legend he was ambitious of transcribing. 

THE MENDICANT FPuIARS. 

It cannot be supposed that a clergy, such as has been 
described, much as they might be feared, could be general- 
ly popular. The common people especially, were prepared 
by their neglect of the duties of their office, their insolence 
and merciless rapacity, to welcome that new fraternity which 
oame into existence early in the thirteenth century, and 
which now formed the most efficient corps of the Papal 
army in England. The followers of St. Francis had made 
their first appearance in the kingdom about one hundred 
years before the time of Wickliffe. They were now to be 
found in every lane and by-way, conspicuous by the close- 
shaven crown, unshod feet, coarse brown frock and rope 
girdle, by which they sought a visible contrast with the 
luxurious Monks and Priests of the old regime. 



32 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

The conception of the Mendicant Orders bears upon it 
the unmistakable stamp of genius. It sprang up in the 
bosom of an indurated system, with all the force and fresh- 
ness of a new vitality. Amidst the worldly luxury, pomp, 
and indolence, which for ages had characterized the Kom- 
ish clergy, there was now to reappear the affecting specta- 
cle of poverty, humility, and active benevolence exhibited 
by Christ and his apostles. Priest and Monk had alike 
despised, neglected and oppressed the people. The Friars 
were to devote themselves to the people. Instead of idly 
withdrawing into monasteries, under pretence of greater 
sanctity, they were to spread themselves, an army of evan- 
gelists, among all classes ; to seek out the poor in the 
highways and hedges, and offer them the Gospel on such 
terms that the humblest might share its blessings. The 
parish priests had almost abandoned preaching as a part 
of their vocation, confining their services to Mass and the 
Confessional. The Friars seized on the neglected instru- 
ment of popular influence, and by it made themselves mas- 
ters of the common mind. The priests had rendered them- 
selves odious by the compulsory exaction of tithes. The 
Friars, in return for their self-denying and laborious ser- 
vices, asked only such alms as the charity and gratitude of 
the faithful should bestow freely ; while, by the vowe of 
their order, they were forever precluded from holding pro- 
perty in the soil. 

It is not strange that they should soon have won the 
entire confidence and affection of the people. Even the 
best and most enlightened men, who had long groaned over 
the vices and indolence of the clergy, hailed their advent 
as the dawn of a radical reformation in the church. They 
found, too late, that it was but sending the locust to rool 



THE PAPAL ARMY IN ENGLAND. 33 

out the canker-worm. What could be expected of a body 
of men, armed by the infallible head of the church with an 
unlimited commission to trade in sin, and responsible for 
their lives and teachings to neither secular nor spiritual 
power in the country where they lived ? The pitiable igno- 
rance and credulity of the masses invited imposition. 
When the barefoot Friar, clad in his serge gown, and 
weary with toiling over the rough and miry ways, an- 
nounced in some neglected hamlet that he had come to offer 
pardons, indulgences, the redemption of their deceased 
friends from purgatory, and all the precious wares of the 
church, at a price within the reach of the poorest laborer 
or beggar, it seemed to the deluded people like good tidings 
of great joy. He could, moreover, by certain old rags, 
pigs' bones, rusty nails, bits of rotten wood, and similar 
rubbish which he carried about with him under the name 
of relics, ensure them good crops, and fruitful herds, and 
faithful wives, all for a very reasonable consideration. His 
animated harangues, seasoned with marvellous stories, all to 
the honor and glory of his Order, took their ears captive. 
Then he was so affable, so condescending ! He was not 
too proud to sit down under the thatched roof, and eat 
with his rustic hosts, washing down the plain fare with 
draughts from the pewter tankard, while his merry joke 
and tale was the best sauce of the feast. He could expatiate, 
too, with great edification, on the pride, and wealth, and ex- 
tortion of the monks and priests, who were lords of such 
vast domains, and rioted in palaces on the hard earnings 
of the poor. As for him, he demanded nothing. But 
should the worthy friends see fit to replenish his empty 
wallet with such needfuls as they could spare for the poor 
brethren, the saints would assuredly return the pious gift 



34 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

fourfold into their basket and store. As a farther security 
that such bounty should not lose its reward, he carefully 
entered on his tablets the name of every one who contri- 
buted fish or bacon, poultry, flax or wool, for the commu- 
nity, with the promise that he should be duly remembered 
in their prayers ; though, as Chaucer, who drew his pic- 
ture* from the life, informs us, the list was wiped out with- 
out ceremony as soon as his back was turned on the simple 
donors. 

" When folk in church had gave him what they list, 

He went his way, no longer would he rest — 

"With scrip and tipped staflf, ytucked high. 

In every house he 'gan to pore and pry. 

And begged meal and cheese, or else corn. 

His fellow had a staff ytipped with horn, 

A pair of tables, all of ivory, 

A pointell ypolished fetously. 

And wrote always the names as he stood. 

Of all the folk that gave them any good, 

Askance that he would for them pray : 
' Give us a bushel wheat, malt, or rye, 
' A God's Kichell,* or a triffle of cheese, 
' Or else what ye list, I may not choose, 
^ A God's halfpenny or a mass penny, 

* Or give us of your brawn, if ye have any ; 
^ A dagon of your blanket, deare dame, — 

* Our sister deare, lo, her^ I write your name, — 

* Bacon or beef, or such thing as ye find.' 
A sturdy harlot went hard aye behind. 
That was their host's man, and bare a sack, 
And what men gave him, laid it on his back. 

* A little cake. 



J THE FAPAL ARMY IN ENGLAND. 35 

And when he was out at the door, anon 
He plained away the names, every one 
That he before had written in his tables ; 
He served them with niffles and with fables. '* 

This was the most successful blow which had ever yet 
been struck for the Papacy. Hitherto, the relation be- 
tween the clergy and people had been such, as to allow of 
a wholesome dislike of the priesthood. The faults of su- 
periors and oppressors are easily discerned by those on 
whom they trample ,* and it might be hoped that in time, 
the common mind would rise above the delusions of a sys- 
tem, whose temporal bondage was so hard to bear. But 
under this new form, it wormed itself into the very heart 
of the people. It fell in with all their prejudices, flattered 
their vanity, vulgarized religion to their tastes, cheapened 
it to their means, and bound them, heart and soul, to 
their spiritual teachers. 

Their special commission, held directly from the Pope, 
rendering them amenable to himself alone, gave the Friars 
a great advantage. Under this all-powerful sanction, they 
ranged from parish to parish, from diocese to diocese, re- 
gardless of all prescriptive rights, literally underselling all 
competitors, and crowding them out of market. Crime 
of every sort, secure of absolution in the most private 
manner and at the cheapest rate, increased with fearful 
rapidity. One bishop complained, that he had in his diocese 
some two thousand malefactors, of whom not fourteen had 
received absolution from the parish priests, who yet defied 
punishment, and claimed their right to the sacraments on 
the pretence of having been absolved by the Friars. 

But they were not confined to the poor. Like the 
Apostle, but with a very different object, they became all 



36 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

things to all men. They neglected no class of society ; 
they had an eye to every source of influence. Many of 
them took high rank as men of learning, according to the 
standard of the age. Even in the Universities, whose 
prime object was the education of the secular clergy, the 
Friars gained an ascendency which threatened to convert 
them into nurseries of their own order. They increased 
in numbers with unparalleled rapidity, and by their holy 
beggary and traffic soon became enormously rich. Being 
prohibited the ownership of land, they invested their funds 
in magnificent churches and convents, in gold and silver 
plate, rich vestments and precious stones ; while the in- 
terior of their sacred dwellings witnessed excesses not sur- 
passed by those of the monastery. 

" Round many a convent's blazing fire 
^' Unhallowed threads of revelry are spun ; 
" There Venus sits disguised like a Nun, — 
" While Bacchus, clothed in semblance of a Friar, 
•■^ Pours out his choicest beverage. 



" The arched roof, with resolute abuse 

" Of its grave echoes, swells a choral cheer 

" Whose votive burden is — Our kingdom's here !" 

But they never forgot that drops make the ocean ; never 
became too proud to beg from the poor. Wicklifi'e found 
the land swarming with them, a gross and sordid pack, 
still maiutainiDg by their low arts all their power over a 
debased and cheated people. 

The song of jolly Friar Tuck, in Ivanhoe, gives a lively 
picture both of tlie popularity and the grossness of the 



THE PAPAL ARMY IN ENGLAND. 37 

Order, though the darkest shades are of course omitted in 
the portrait : 

" The Friar has walked out, and where'er he has gone, 
" The laud and its fatness is marked for his own ; 
" He can roam where he lists, he can stop when he tires 
" For every man's house is the Barefooted Friar's. 

" He's expected at noon, and no wight till he comes 
" Msij profane the great chair and the porridge of plums, 
" For the best of the fare, and the seat by the fire, 
" Is the undenied right of the Barefooted Friar. 

" He's expected at night, and the pastry's made hot, 
" They broach the brown ale, and they fill the black pot ; 
'' And the good wife would wish her good man in the mire, 
" Ere he lacked a soft pillow, the Barefooted Friar. 

" Long flourish the sandal, the cord, and the cope, 
" The dread of the devil and trust of the Pope ; 
" For to gather life's roses, unscathed by the briar, 
" Is granted alone to the Barefooted Friar." 

All the resources, whether of property or influence, thus 
accumulated by these immediate proteges and vassals of 
the Pope, was so much capital to the Papacy itself. How 
rich a vein of material wealth had been opened to his Ho- 
liness may be judged of by the fact, that in 1299 the Fran- 
ciscans were able to offer him fifty thousand ducats in gold 
for permission to own land, — a petition which he refused, 
however, after quietly pocketing the money. He would 
allow them to form no ties with the country in which they 
lived, which might interfere with unconditional subserviency 
to himself. The increase of his direct influence on all the 
internal affairs of the kingdom, and over the mind of the 



38 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. ^ 

nation through their means, was still more important 
The secular clergy, as we have seen, had become his crea- 
tures; the monasteries, by successive strokes of policy 
had been withdrawn from episcopal jurisdiction, and made 
immediately accountable to himself. But as large land 
proprietors, it was possible for exigencies to arise when 
these orders of the clergy might prefer the interests of the 
country to his own. The system was made complete by 
the addition of a corps, exceeding them both in number, 
who had no dependence but his favor, no ties which could 
interfere with unconditional subserviency to himself; and 
whose revenues must be the fruit of incessant activity in 
imbuing the popular mind with attachment to the Papacy. 

The stimulus imparted by their success to the whole 
body of the clergy was, moreover, highly satisfactory. All 
eyes were turned with increasing eagerness towards the 
great dispenser of patronage. Rome became more and 
more the central point of interest, the grand mart of office, 
the final court of appeal to all parties, and the papal 
treasury overflowed with the bribes of rival suitors. Such 
being the result, the quarrels among his vassals, over the 
division of the spoils at home, did not disturb the serenity 
of the Head of the Church. 

Not even yet had he exhausted his devices for governing 
and draining England. His special officers, located at all 
important points in the kingdom, held the double office of 
papal spies and tax-gatherers; while his legates and nun- 
cios, aruicd with plenipotentiary powers, held their courts 
over the heads of both king and bishops, and decided mo- 
mentous ecclesiastical questions, vitally afi*ecting the in- 
terests of the State, by the simple authority of the suc- 
cessor of St. Peter. 



THE PAPAL ARMY IN ENGLAND. 39 

By these various methods, the Pontiff drew yearly from 
England five times the amount of the whole royal reve- 
nue;* and this was the smallest injury sustained by the 
enslaved country from the unnatural connection. 

* So stated in the petition of the " Good Parliament," 1376. Vaughan. 



CHAPTER III. 



COUNTER-INFLUENCES ; THEIR INEFFICIENCY. 

If now we enquire for any counter-influences at work 
in England in the fourteenth century, we shall find, at 
several points, a decided hostility to the encroachments of 
the Papacy. Edward III. was too spirited and ambitious 
a monarch to look on patiently, while so large and influen- 
tial a body of his nominal subjects disowned his authority, 
and the Pope of Rome exercised more power in his realm, 
and drew from it far more money than himself. But his 
quarrel was not with the religion of the Papacy. He was 
jealous, as well he might be, of the political power and 
the wealth of the clergy. It chafed him sorely to see 
papal legates and provisors running through his kingdom, 
draining it of money, interfering with his own govern- 
ment, and acting as spies to his enemies.* But there is 
little indication of any enlightened, generous concern for 
the moral condition of his people, or even for their tempo- 

* During his reign tlio Papal court was fixed at Avignon, in France, and 
seven successive Pontiflfs were Frenchmen. 



counter-influences; their inefficiency. 41 

ral welfare. He was always ready to grind them down to 
the last point of endurance, sparing neither their property 
nor their blood, in furtherance of his own ambitious and 
selfish projects. His efforts had for their object no real 
reformation within the church, nor would a living, spiritual 
Christianity have been welcomed by him more cordially 
than by the Pope himself. His resistance was, moreover, 
too fitful and capricious to effect a permanent change even 
in the outward relations of England to the Papacy, being 
ever the first man to violate his own laws when tempted 
by some present advantage. Thus the odious system of 
papal provisions,* against which such spirited laws were 
enacted by his authority, remained nevertheless in full 
practical force, because the king himself would still appeal 
to the Pope whenever he could not otherwise secure the 
appointment of his favorite candidate. 

The same was true of the Secular Barons; though, having 
less to gain from the Papacy, these were, in general, more 
consistent in their opposition to its 'encroachments. There 
is frequently something very imposing, in the tone and 
bearing with which these martial nobles meet the preten- 
sions both of the sovereign pontiff, and of their own des- 
potic monarchs. Seen through the magnifying haze of 
time, they rise before us as the representatives, in an age 
of lawless tyranny, of the great principles of human free- 
dom. A closer view greatly diminishes our admiration. 
No king was ever more ready than they to defer to the 
Pope as the vicegerent of God, when it suited their own 
purposes. No king ever ruled his subjects with a more 

* Reversionary grants by the Pope to benefices not yet vacant, without 
reference to the rights of the native legal patrons. The sale of these pro- 
visionary grants was a source of large income to the Papal Court. 



42 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

iron hand, than did these liberty -loving nobles their depen- 
dents and vassals. Magna Charta itself was the fruit of a 
coalition, formed under the sanction of Innocent III., be- 
tween the nobles and the clergy, for the twofold purpose of 
protecting themselves against the despotism of King John, 
and of chastising his attempt to throw off the Papal yoke.* 
Small would have been the gain to liberty, had not other 
influences come in to extend its provisions somewhat beyond 
the interests of these ^^ upper classes." Happily, John 
was not yet brought so low, but that he could claim the 
insertion of certain articles as distasteful to the Barons as 
theirs were to him. Happily, they were not so strong, but 
that the rich though despised tradesmen of London could 
demand certain provisions for their class as the price of 
their aid. Even then, it brought to the great body of the 
people no hope of freedom or improvement. The laboring 
classes, i. e. the majority of the English people, are but 
twice mentioned in this famous instrument, and then it is, 
as Henry remarks, ^' for the benefit of their masters."! 
Even then Magna Charta, interpreted by the circumstances 
of the times, was a guarantee for the perpetual domination 
of the Romish clergy in England. In the nobles of the 
fourteenth century, we discover no essential advancement in 
moral character or breadth of views, beyond those of a 
hundred years before. Their remonstrances against Papal 
oppression take no higher or bolder tone, nor would they 

♦ Seo an a<iiiiirable analysis of the Great Charter in Henry's History, 
vol. vi. p. 65. 

f The 4th article provides against " the waste of men and goods ^^ on the 
estates of minors to the detriment of the heir when he shall come of age ; 
the 6th secures to a " villain" his implements of husbandry again.<t seizure 
Bs payment of fines, — a practice very inconvenient to those who lived by 
his labor. 



counter-influences; their inefficiency. 43 

have made any greater figure in the history of English 
freedom, had they not been immediately followed by the 
labors of a genuine E-eformer. 

If we turn to the Universities, the sacred schools of those 
times, in the hope of finding some dawnings of a better 
day, the same disappointment meets us here. True, they 
were marked by a strong feeling of nationality, and an active 
jealousy of that papal influence which was exerted so inju- 
riously to the interests of the native clergy. Their members 
hated the Friars as the emissaries of the Pope, and their own 
chief rivals. But for liberal ideas, sound learning, or de- 
voted piety, the academic halls of this period are searched 
in vain. It would indeed be strange, if the nurseries of 
the clergy should have surpassed in these respects the de- 
mands of the church. The speediest road, both to wealth 
and clerical preferment, was then found in the practice of 
the civil, and especially the canon law ; * and accordingly, 
many young candidates for the ministry spent their entire 
term of University study, in fitting themselves to become, 
in a sense not altogether evangelical, " fishers of men." — 
The profession of medicine being also very lucrative, and 
almost monopolized by churchmen, large numbers of the 
young clergy became deeply skilled in the mystery of heal- 
ing as then understood — for instance, curing small-pox 
without scars, by wrapping the patient in '^ red scarlet 
cloth ;" or stopping epileptic fits, by saying mass over the 
patient and causing his parents to fast. For those of a 
speculative turn, there was the scholastic philosophy with 
its abstruse discussions of entities and non-entities, sub- 
stances and accidents, substantial forms and occult quali- 

* The system of Papal jurisprudence drawn from the decisions of Popes 
and Councils. 



44 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

ties. The Universities could boast their subtle^ sublime 
profound^ angelic^ and seraphic doctors of theology, who 
could discuss through endless folios the questions : " Does 
the glorified body of Christ stand or sit in Heaven ? Is the 
body of Christ, which is eaten in the sacrament, dressed or 
undressed ? Were the clothes in which Christ appeared to 
his disciples after his resurrection, real or only apparent ? 
Was Christ the same between his death and resurrection, 
as before his death and after his resurrection ?" Subjects 
even more frivolous and absurd engaged the attention of 
the sharpest intellects of the times. Thus, the question : 
" Whether a hog, taken to market with a rope tied round 
its neck which is held at the other end by a man, is carried 
by the rope or by the man ?" was gravely argued by the 
logicians, and declared insoluble, the reasons on both sides 
being perfectly balanced. But their disquisitions were not 
all so innocent. The obscene and blasphemous charac- 
ter of some of their speculations proves too clearly, that 
the foulest moral impurity is quite compatible with childish 
folly. 

Such had been the general character of these '' theologi- 
cal seminaries," ever since the Bible had been cast aside in 
the spiritual instruction of the people. The decline of all 
liberal and comprehensive culture had kept pace with the 
decline of the study of the Holy Scriptures. The great 
Roger Bacon declared, in the preceding century, that among 
the scholars of his time, there were but three or four who 
had any knowledge of Greek or Hebrew. There was, how- 
ever, then to be found occasionally in the Universities a 
Bible doctor^ (so called in contempt of the antiquated and 
unprofitable direction of his studies,) though it was diffi- 
cult for a teacher so far behind the age to obtain tlin use 



counter-influences; their inefficiency. 45 

of a lecture-room, or the command of a regular Lour, or to 
persuade a handful of young men to listen to his instruc- 
tions. But it was now long, since one of these fossil-speci- 
mens of the past had appeared among scholars. Even a 
copy of the Latin Vulgate was scarcely to be found at the 
Universities. In 1353, three or four young Irish priests 
came over to England to study divinity ; but were obliged 
to return home " because not a copy of the Bible was to 
be found at Oxford." The morals of these schools, fre- 
quented yearly by many thousands of English youths, were 
not a whit superior to their learning. Frequent allusions 
occur, in the records of the time, to the fearful preval- 
ence of the most debasing vices, among both teachers and 
students. 

In glancing along the course of English history, from 
the Conquest to the middle of the fourteenth century, one 
fact strikes the attentive reader with peculiar force. During 
that whole period, we do not perceive the development in 
the life of society, of a single radically new idea. Several 
truly great men had sat on the English throne ; the Eng- 
lish Church had given birth to scholars, theologians, and 
statesmen of no mean rank. Nor was it destitute of yet 
nobler names, shining with the lustre of personal piety and 
zeal for religion, amidst the thick moral darkness. But 
they all drift with the powerful current, which set in with 
William I. and his Anglo-Norman church. Their attempts 
to remedy existing evils are superficial and fragmentary, 
utterly inefi"ectual to arrest the mighty onward tide of 
priestly domination and corruption. Much is vaguely as- 
serted respecting the progress of civil liberty during this 
period. The courts of law attained, it is said, a thei reti- 
cal perfection in the time of Edward III. which has scarcely 



46 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

been surpassed. But if we look at the actual condition 
of the people in the fourteenth century, we see little that 
deserves the name of progress. Violence and bribery 
every where overawed or corrupted justice. " There was 
not," we are told, ^' so much as one of the king's ministers 
and judges who did not receive bribes, and very few who 
did not extort them."* Perjury was a vice so universal, 
that the words of Scripture might have found an almost 
literal application to the English people, from the king to 
the serf — ^'AU men are liars." Life and property were 
kept in perpetual insecurity, by the numerous and ferocious 
bands of robbers which roamed over the country, under 
the protection of powerful barons, who sheltered them in 
their castles, and shared with them their booty. English- 
men and Englishwomen were still sold like cattle at the 
great fairs. Grossness of manners characterized all ranks, 
and exhibited itself in the most revolting forms of licen- 
tiousness among the leading classes. " Like priest, like 
people," was never more fully verijBed than in this portion 
of English history, f 

The recognition of the right of burgher representation, 
in the establishment of the House of Commons, has been 
appealed to, as the beginning of the England that now is. 
But what was this, in reality, but a mere extension of the 
old idea that " might makes right," the recognition of a 
new potency, in addition to that of the stronger arm, viz. : the 
potency of PRorERTY ? A great and glorious advance it 

* Henry Vol. viii, 384. 
■f This picture may seem too dark for truth ", but the reader will find it 
fully borne out by the histories of the time. See, particularly, Henry's His- 
tory, vols. V, Ti, viii, and x. The showy virtues of chivalry, the portraiture 
of which, by novelists and poets, has made this period so dear to the fancy, 
are by no means inconsistent with the >ices hero depicted. 



counter-influences; their inefficiency. 47 

indeed was, over the reign of brute force ! But it did not 
spring from the root of true liberty. The idea of man, 
with his inborn, inalienable rights — now the characteristic 
idea of the Anglo-Saxon race — had never then dawned on 
the English mind. When, in 1381, a hundred thousand 
English laborers came up to London, with the humble re- 
quest that they might become men, they met in no class 
with less sympathy than among the free commoners. — 
When Richard II. announced to parliament, at its next 
session, that he had revoked the charters of freedom with 
which he had deluded his poor subjects, the House of 
Commons expressed its cordial approbation of the cruel 
fraud, and declared that they would never give their assent 
to the abolition of serfdom, ^' though it were to save them- 
selves from all perishing in a day." It was the House of 
Commons too, who petitioned at a still later period, that 
serfs might not be permitted to send their children to 
school — '' and this for the honor and glory of all the free- 
men of the realm !" And the majority of Englishmen, be 
it remembered, were then serfs, or in a state of civil disa- 
bility scarcely above that of absolute slaves of the soil. 

Allowing, then, the utmost that can reasonably be 
claimed for the progress of freedom, there was as yet no 
sign presaging England's glorious future ; nothing to 
which we can look back and say : Here was the earnest of 
her great destiny ! In the nature of the case, there could 
not be. Of civil liberty in its true and noblest sense — 
that which embraces in its protecting arms the whole 
people, and allows full scope to the development of the 
individual as a moral and social beino^ — of this the world 
has seen no example, where a State religion holds the con- 
sciences of men in blind subjection to the priesthood, and 
denies the Bible to the common people. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE BIBLE-APOSTLE. 

Such was the gloomy and almost hopeless scene present- 
ed by England, when there appeared on the stage a teacher 
of religion, whose whole life and ouinions had their source 
in the teachings of the Bible. 

How Wickliffe had come into possession of the Bible, at 
a time when it was an unknown book to the great body of 
the clergy as well as laity, and was wholly ignored in *' the 
course of theological study " at Oxford, history does not 
inform us. His first discovery of the treasure might re- 
veal a religious experience no less affecting, a providential 
guidance no less striking, than in the case of Luther. 
Perchance the earnest student, urged by an inward want 
w'hich found little satisfaction in the dry and frivolous dip- 
cussions of the lecture-room, was rummaging those old 
chests in the crypt of St. Mary's,* when the beautifully 
written and illuminated Biblia Sacra caught his eye. 

* At this time the library of Oxford was kept ki a few chests under St. 
Mary's Church. 



THE BIBLE-APOSTLE. 49 

With the first glance at the strange words of life and truth, 
how would the monkish legends and the musty disquisi- 
tions of the sententiaries bo forgotten ; and hour after hour 
glide away unnoted amid those dim old vaults, while the 
enchained reader bent, torch in hand, over the page of 
inspiration ! This indeed is but fancy. But it is no mere 
fancy that Wickliffe found a Bible ; and that he pored over 
it so long and earnestly, and with such fervent prayer to 
God, that it became to him the source of a new spiritual 
existence, and the guiding star of his destiny. 

Those beautiful words uttered in one of his sermons at 
Lutterworth, might fitly serve - as the motto of his whole 
subsequent career : ^' Oh Christ ! thy law is hidden in the 
sepulchre ; when wilt thou send thy angel to remove the 
stone, and show thy truth unto thy flock !" 

It is not within the scope of this sketch, to portray in 
detail Wickliffe's successive labors as a Reformer. These 
will only be briefly mentioned, as indicating the path by 
which he was conducted to his last and crowning work ; 
that work, without which all his previous efi*orts would 
have proved like inscriptions on the sand, — the restora- 
tion OF the Bible to the common people. 

OPPOSES the mendicants. 

His first conflict was with the Friars, about the year 
1360; who, having succeeded by the help of the Pope in 
thrusting themselves into important offices in the Univer- 
sity, were exerting a most baneful influence on its students, 
inducing great numbers of them to take the vows of their 
Order. He had also had ample opportunities of observ- 
ing their abominable lives, and the arts by which they 
practised on the credulity of the lower classes. No doubt 



50 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

chey had many times before provoked his stern rebuke. — 
But the long-felt indignation now kindles into the Reform- 
er's zeal. He feels in himself the summons to come forth 
and do battle for the truth. 

It is interesting to note the stand-point of Wickliffe in 
this, the initiative step of his career as a reformer. We 
have indeed nothing from his pen which can be assigned to 
the exact date of this controversy ; but his writings, on 
the same subject, which have been preserved, sufficiently 
indicate his position. Grostete, Armichanus, and other 
great and good men of the English Church, had severely 
censured the immoralities of the Friars. Wickliffe depicts 
their atrocious practices with a still more fearless hand. — 
But he goes much farther than this. He strikes at the 
root of the evil. In his view, their system, from the foun- 
dation upwards, is a lie ; their very existence, high treason 
to Him who has revealed in the Scriptures the most per- 
fect law of faith and life. The Friars had put forth the 
bold claim, that their religion took precedence, in dignity 
and merit, of the religion of Christ. According to them, 
there had been three dispensations ; the first, contained in 
the Old Testament, proceeding from the Father ; the 
second, that of the New, proceeding from the Son ; and 
finally, " the everlasting gospel," proclaimed by the angel 
in the Apocalypse, (who was no other than St. Francis, the 
founder of their Order,) and was, of course, to supersede 
every other. 

The reasoning, by which Wickliffe meets this assump- 
tion, shows how firmly he had anchored himself on the re- 
vealed word. The religion of Christ, he argues, must be 
most perfect, inasmuch as its founder is most perfect. To 
charge him with not teaching the best religion, is to charge 



THE BIBLE- APOSTLE. 51 

him with want, either of the highest wisdom or the highest 
love. It is also most perfect in its rule of life, being 
purely divine, without mixture of human error. It is most 
perfect in the example which it furnishes, since Christ and 
his apostles " be chief knights thereof." It is most per- 
fect in the freedom of its service, as it " standeth in all love 
and freedom of heart, bidding nothing but what is reason- 
able and profitable, and Christ himself declares : ^ My 
yoke is easy and my burden is light.' " But the friars pre- 
tended, that their works of merit far exceeded the de- 
mands of Christ. " Can any man,'' asks Wicklifi'e, *' more 
than fulfill that first and great command, to love God with 
all the heart, all the mind and all the strength, and his 
neighbor as himself ?" Then cannot any man exceed the 
demands of Christ's religion. He therefore who pretends 
to amend Christ's religion, in fact denies it, and is an apos- 
tate from the faith. But the point of most significance, 
for its reference to his future career, is found in his con- 
trast between the Friar's religion and that of Christ, in re- 
spect to the sanction under which they respectively claim 
belief. *^ Christ's religion," he says, " is most true, be- 
cause confirmed of Grod and not of sinful men ; and because 
by it the Pope and every other man must be confirmed, or 
else he shall be damned ; while the new Orders, being con- 
firmed only by the Pope, may turn out to have been con- 
firmed by a devil." 

Thus, in this first attack on the errors of the age, Wick- 
liffe struck the key-note of all his future labors. 

SUMMONED TO PARLIAMENT. 

So bold an assault on this powerful body could not fail 
to provoke their mortal enmity. But it also fixed on him 



52 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the favorable attention of those who were jealous of the 
political power of the Pope and clergy. In 1365 he was 
present at the Parliament, to which Edward III. submitted 
the demand of Urban V. for the renewal of King John's 
tribute;* and, from the circumstances, there can be no 
doubt that he had been invited to London to aid the resist- 
ing party by his counsels. That he was one of its acknow- 
ledged leaders, is seen in the fact, that soon after Parlia- 
ment's indignant repudiation of the papal claim, he was 
challenged by name, in a violent anonymous tract on the 
subject ; and that he responded to the call, as one whose 
right and duty it was to speak in the case. From his reply, 
we learn the considerations which had influenced the deci- 
sion of Parliament; and from their general correspondence 
to his own views^ expressed elsewhere, it can hardly be 
doubted that they were, for the most part, first borrowed 
from his own mind. Here, also, we observe the same 
reference to the teachings and authority of the Scriptures. 
The Pope, he argues, cannot claim, as the representative 
of Christ, anything beyond what Christ claimed for him- 
self. But Christ's oflfice was purely spiritual ; he refused 
all secular dominion ; nay, so far was he from exercising 
temporal lordship, that he subsisted on charity, and had not 
where to lay his head. He concludes, therefore, that Eng- 
land owes no civil allegiance to the Pope, and may pro- 
perly repel his aggressions upon her temporal sovereignty. 
On the same general ground he maintained also, that the 
secular possessions of the clergy are held on the same 

* Urban required, not only the thousand marks yearly, as promised by 
John, but the payment of all arroarngos, principal and interest, for the pre- 
vious thirty years ; in default of which, the king was cited to appear before 
the pontiff, and answer for his conduct as to his feudal lord. 



THE BIBLE-APOSTLE. 53 

tenure with that of the other subjects of the realm, and 
are liable to control, or if abused, to forfeiture by the 
secular powers which first bestowed them ; and in all civil 
cases, the persons of ecclesiastics should, as in the case of 
the laity, be subject to the civil courts. In this, he struck 
at that grand prerogative of the clergy, for which Lan- 
franc, Anselm, Becket, and a long line of popish heroes 
had waged deadly warfare with their sovereigns. 

In 1371, we find his name connected with a parliamen- 
tary movement for an additional reform in respect to the 
clergy, viz. : their exclusion from secular offices. Their 
monopoly of all places of honor and profit in the State, 
joined to their ecclesiastical power, had given them a most 
dangerous preponderance in the government; and yet, 
strange to say, Wickliffe seems to have been the first who 
questioned their perfect right to it. He indeed opposed 
this admixture of the spiritual and temporal on purely re- 
ligious grounds. Such a coalition was, in his view, incom- 
patible with the New Testament conception of the sanc- 
tity and high responsibility of the sacred office. ^' He that 
warreth, entangleth not himself with tbis life," was his 
favorite axiom on that subject. He complains that '^ pre- 
lates and great religious possessioners, are so occupied in 
heart about worldly lordships and pleas of business, that 
no habit of devotion, of praying, of thoughtfulness on 
heavenly things, on the sins of their own hearts or those of 
other men, may be preserved; neither are they found 
studying and preaching the Gospel, nor visiting and com- 
forting of poor men." These are the reasons for which he 
concludes, that ^' neither prelates nor doctors, priests nor 
deacons, should hold secular offices." But the doctrine 
thus first suggested from a religious point of view, was 



54 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

eagerly caught up by the laity for its political application, 
and was made the subject of one of the most important 
memorials submitted to Parliament during this eventful 
reign. 

PROFESSOR AT OXFORD. 

The following year, he received his degree of Doctor in 
Theology, and commenced a course of divinity lectures at 
Oxford. The strong impression immediately created in 
the University, is not surprising. By the testimony of 
Knyghton, a man well qualified to judge in such matters, 
and withal a bitter opponent of Wickliffe's doctrines, he 
was " as a theologian, the most eminent of his time ; in 
philosophy, second to none ; as a schoolman, incompara- 
ble." And again : " No man excelled him in the strength 
and number of his arguments ; and he excelled all men in 
the irresistible power of his eloquence." Walden, another 
of his inveterate enemies, confessed in a letter to Pope 
Martin V., "that he had often stood amazed beyond 
measure, at the excellence of his learning, the boldness of 
his assertions, the exactness of his authorities, and the 
strength of his arguments." But his mastery of scholas- 
tic lore was not the secret of his power. It was the living 
influence of a spirit, which, having drunk deeply at the foun- 
tain of Eternal Truth, yearned to lead others thither also. 
Casting aside the absurd speculations and sophistries which 
they had been wont to hear from the Professor's chair, he 
reasoned with his pupils on such themes as the being, na- 
ture, and attributes of God ; the immortality of the soul, 
its faculties and aff'ections ; the essential nature of sin and 
of holiness. Nor did he content himself with abstract 
truth. In the lecture-room, he was still the practical re- 
former. Thus from the consideration of the nature of sin. 



THE BIBLE-APOSTLE. 65 

he proceeds to the conclusion, that the distinction between 
mortal and venial sin, " about which the prelates babble 
60 much," is a mere priestly contrivance for making gain ; 
that the doctrine of priestly absolution and indulgence is 
an impious invasion of the prerogatives of God, who is 
alone able to forgive sin. The great churchmen who were 
60 free with their dispensations, were, in his bold language, 
^' blasphemers of the wisdom of God, pretending in their 
avarice and folly, to understand what they know not ; sen- 
sual simonists, who chatter on the subject of grace as if it 
were something to be bought and sold like an ox or an ass." 
Saint- worship had at this time almost supplanted the wor- 
ship of God, and had substituted, for the one Mediator, a 
countless army of intercessors in the Saints of the Romish 
Calendar.* The following extract shows how Wickliffe, 
even thus early in his public career, had risen above the 
guperstitions of his age : " Whoever entreats a saint, should 
direct his prayer to Christ as God, not to the special 

* A striking exemplification of this tendency is seen in the case of Thomas 
Becketj that bold, bad man, who had been canonized by the Romish Church 
as a martyr, and thereafter reigned for centuries as the chief English Saint. 
His shrine in Canterbury Cathedral was enriched with offerings of astonish- 
ing magnificence and value, and every fifty years a jubilee in his honor 
drew together an innumerable company of pilgrims. At the fifth jubilee, 
in 1420, the concourse is said to have amounted to 100,000 persons. " The 
devotion towards him had quite effaced in that place the adoration of the 
Deity ; nay, even that of the Virgin. At God's altar, for instance, there 
were offered in one year three pounds, two shillings and sixpence ; at the 
Virgin's, sixty-three pounds, five shillings and sixpence ; at St. Thomas', 
eight hundred and thirty-two pounds, twelve shillings and threepence. But 
the next year the disproportion was still greater ; there was not a penny 
offered at God's altar; the Virgin's gained only four pounds, one shilling 
and eightpence ; but St. Thomas had got for his share nine hundred and 
fifty-four pounds, six shillings and threepence." Hume's England quoted 
from ed. 1796, in En^, Reformers^ vol. i. p. 52. 



56 THE ENGLISH BIBLE, 

Saint, but to Christ. Nor doth the celebration or festival 
of a saint avail anything, except in so far as it may tend 
to magnify Christ, inciting ns to honor him, and increasing 
our love to him. If there be any celebration in honor of 
the saints, which is not kept within these limits, it is to 
be ascribed, without doubt, to cupidity, or some other evil 
motive. Hence, not a few think it would be well for the 
Church, if all festivals of that nature were abolished, and 
those only retained which have respect immediately to 
Christ. For then, they say, the memory of Christ would 
be kept more freshly in the mind, and the devotions of the 
common people would not be unduly distributed among 
the members of Christ. .... For the Scriptures assure us 
that Christ is the Mediator between God and man." Free- 
dom of religious opinion, and the right of private judgment, 
are distinctly vindicated in these lectures. " Christ," 
says he, ^' wished his law to be observed willingly, freely, 
that in such obedience men might find happiness. Hence 
he ap]pointed no civil punishinent to be injlictecl on trans- 
gressors of his commandments^ but left them to a punish- 
ment more severe, that would come after the day of judg- 
ment." — Human tradition he set aside as of no account in 
matters of religion. " If there be any truth," he says, " it 
is in the Scripture ; and there is no truth to be found in 
the schools, that may not be found in more excellence in 
the Bible." 

Even those who were attached to the person and opinions 
of WicklifFe, were alarmed at his boldness. They begged 
him to remember, when thus exposing himself to the wrath 
of the great '^ satraps of the church," that his appeal to 
the Scriptures for the truth of his views would be of little 
avail, in a time when the Scriptures themselves were of lio 



THE BIBLE-APOSTLE. 57 

authority. " Without doubt," he replied, ^' what you say 
is true. The chief cause of the existing state of things is 
our want of faith in the Holy Scriptures. We do not sin- 
cerely believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, or we should 
abide by the authority of his word, especially of the Evan- 
gelists, as of infinitely greater weight than' every other. 
It is the will of the Holy Spirit, that the books of the Old 
and New Law should be read and studied, as the one suf- 
ficient source of instruction ; and that men should not be 
taken up with other books, which, true as they may be, and 
even containing Scripture truth, are not to be confided in 
without caution and limitation. Hence Augustine often 
enjoins it on his readers, not to place any faith in his word 
or writings, except so far as they have their foundation in 
Scripture. Of course we should judge thus of the writ- 
ings of other holy doctors ; much more of the writ- 
ings of the Roman Church and her doctors, in these 
later times. If we follow this rule, the Scriptures will 
be held in becoming reverence. The papal bulls will 
be superseded, as they ought to be. The veneration of 
men for the laws of the papacy, as well as for the opinions 
of our modern doctors, which, since the loosing of Satan, 
they have been so free to promulgate, will be restrained 
within due limits. What concern have the faithful with 
writings of this sort, except as they are honestly deduced 
from the fountain of Scripture ? By such a course, we 
can not only reduce the mandates of popes and prelates to 
their proper place, but the errors of these new religions 
might be corrected, and the worship of Christ well purified 
and exalted." 

Such were the doctrines — and what other than these 

were "the glorious doctrines of the Reformation?" — which 

3* 



58 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Wickliffe, two centuries before Luther, taught openly in 
the halls of Oxford. Here he strove to raise up, from the 
flower of the rising clergy, a corps of devoted spirits who 
should be prepared, in the conflict which he foresaw as in- 
evitable, to do battle for the truth. The high moral en- 
thusiasm which inspired words like the following, must 
have been like an enkindling flame to their young hearts : 
*'A11 christians," thus he addresses them, ^'should be the 
soldiers of Christ. But it is plain that many are charge- 
able with great neglect of this duty ; being prevented by 
fear of the loss of temporal goods and worldly friendships, 
and apprehensive about life and fortune, from faithfully 
setting forth the cause of Grod, from standing manfully in 
its defence, and if need be, from sufi'ering death in its be- 
half. From the like source comes that subterfuge of Satan, 
argued by some of our modern hypocrites, that it cannot 
be a duty now, as in the primitive church, to sufier mar- 
tyrdom, since in our time the great majority of men being 
believers, there are none to persecute Christ to the death 
in his members. But this is, without doubt, a device of 
Satan to shield sin. For the believer, in maintaining the 
law of Christ, should be prepared, as his soldier, to endure 
all things at the hands of the satraps of this world ; de- 
claring boldly to Pope and Cardinals, to Bishops and Pre- 
lates, how unjustly, according to the teaching of the Gos- 
pel, they serve God in their offices, subjecting those com- 
mitted to their care to great injury and peril, such as 
must bring on them speedy destruction. All this applies, 
indeed, to temporal lords, but not in so great a degree as 
to the clergy ; for as the abomination of desolation begins 
with a perverted clergy, so the consolation begins with a 
converted clergy. Hence we Christians need not visit 



THE BIBLE-APOSTLE. 59 

pagans to convert them, by enduring martyrdom in their 
behalf; we have only to declare with constancy the word 
of God before Cassarean Prelates, and straightway the 
Jiower of martyrdom will he ready to our hand P'' 

Wickliffe did not think it sufficient to sow the good seed 
among the clergy alone. While engaged in his duties as 
Professor, he preached on the Sabbath to promiscuous 
auditories, in the mother tongue, the same great truths 
which he taught to his students during the week ; and in 
the intervals of academic duty, he gave himself to the work 
which he loved above all others — that of Christian preacher 
and pastor, in the rectory of Fyllingham. More than 
three hundred of his pastoral sermons, more or less com- 
plete, remain as witnesses of his zeal and fidelity as a reli- 
gious teacher of the common people, and not less of the 
evangelical purity of his doctrines. 

Thus passed two laborious, but peaceful, years of Wick- 
lifpe's life. In favor with the court, for the stand which he 
had taken against the Pope, and with the university, for 
his zeal against . the friars ; honored for his genius, his 
learning, and his virtuous life, he was at this time re- 
garded as the chief light and ornament of Oxford. Thus, 
in the providence of God, time was afforded for his princi- 
ples to become known and to take root in many minds.- — 
We now turn a new leaf in his history. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE POPE AND BISHOPS IN THE FIELD. 

In 1372, a royal commission had been sent to Avignon, 
to remonstrate with the Pope against the sale of English 
benefices, which was still prosecuted on the largest scale. 
When the embassy returned without having accomplished 
any thing, and Parliament resolved to repeat the attempt 
more vigorously, Wicklifi'e was summoned by royal authority 
from Oxford, to join the new commission. That he should 
have been selected for such a purpose, is a striking proof 
of the weight attached to his opinions and personal char- 
acter. But this second effort resulted no better than the 
first. After two years spent in wearisome and fruitless 
negotiations, Wickliffe returned to England, thoroughly 
disgusted with the duplicity and corruption of the Papal 
court,* and fully convinced that no reformation was to be 

* "Wickliffo and his associates were not allowed to proceed to Avignon, but 
were met by the papal commissioners at Bruges. In the following letter of 
Petrarch, written from Avignon while it was the seat of the papal court, wo 
may find a sufficient reason, why the sturdy assailant of tho vices of the 
clergy should not have been allowed a nearer approach to his Holiness — 



THE POPE AND BISHOPS IN THE FIELD. 61 

hoped for from thig quarter ; that if England wished to 
save her civil and religious liberties from swift and utter 
destruction, she must look for rescue elsewhere than to 
the Head of the Church. His bold exposures and appeals 
were, without doubt, the moving spring of those energetic 
measures of reform in the House of Commons, which fol- 
lowed his return from Bruges. 

But they had other results. A few months after his 
return, (early in February, 1377,) the ecclesiastical par- 
liament held its session in London ; and one of its first mat- 
ters of business was to receive accusations against John 
Wickliffe, ^^ as a person holding and promulgating many 
erroneous and heretical opinions." The nineteenth of the 
same month was fixed on for his trial, and a summons 
dispatched to Oxford requiring his presence at the time 
and place appointed. To us, who look back upon this 
movement through the subsequent developments of his- 
tory, it seems an event of no little interest and importance. 
It was the first war-cry of the enemy ; the signal for that 
battle, which was to bathe the soil of England with the 
blood of her noblest sons and daughters, and was never to 
cease, till the Bible and its principles should become tri- 
umphant over the hosts of darkness and error. 

" You imagine," says he, " that the city of Avignon is the same now as when 
you resided in it. No ! it is quite different. True, it was then the worst 
and vilest place on earth ; but it is now a terrestrial hell, a residence of 
fiends and devils, a receptacle of all that is most wicked and abominable. 
What I tell you is not from hearsay, but from my own knowledge and ex- 
perience. In this city there is no piety, no reverence or fear of God, no 
faith or charity, nothing that is holy, just, equitable, or humane. Why 
should I speak of truth, when not only the houses, palaces, courts, churches, 
and the thrones of Popes and Cardinals, but the very earth and air, seem to 
teem with lies ? A future state — heaven, hell, and judgment — are openly 
turned into ridicule, as childish fables." — Henry's History, 



62 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Wicklifife did not shrink from the conflict, which he 
must have long foreseen. He immediately came down to 
London, prepared to meet the charges of his enemies with 
the weapons of Scripture truth. But it was well under- 
stood, that these were of little account in the " holy convo- 
cation" before which he was to answer ; and two of his 
powerful court friends — John, Duke of Lancaster, fourth 
son of Edward III., and Percy, Earl Marshal of England — 
determined to accompany him, and see that he had fair 
play. When we remember the unlimited power of this 
high court in matters of religion, the unscrupulous char- 
acter of its members, and that Wickliffe had assailed them in 
interests vital to their very existence, this will not seem 
an unnecessary or injudicious kindness. 

The nineteenth of February came. At an early hour, 
the immense interior of old St. Paul's was densely filled 
with prelates, priests and citizens ; while a noisy, heaving, 
struggling crowd blackened the surrounding area. Court- 
ney, Bishop of London, seated on the magnificent episcopal 
throne, and surrounded by .robed and mitred dignitaries, 
smiled in conscious power and anticipated triumph. Would 
Wicklifie venture to appear ? Or would he flee, and hide 
himself from the vengeance he had provoked ? In either 
case, he was a doomed man. What then must have been 
the prelate's surprise and rage, when the opening crowd 
disclosed the apostolic figure of Wickliffe, robed in his 
simple college gown, and leaning on his peaceful white 
staff, between the martial forms of Lancaster and Percy ! 
Forgetting all prudence and propriety, he started angrily 
from his seat, and addressed the two noblemen in a tone 
of insolent rebuke, such as peers and soldiers are not wont 
to endure patiently. Their reply was in a spirit no less 



THE POPE AND BISHOPS IN THE FIELD. 63 

haughty ; and the fierce colloquy ended in a tumult which 
broke up the meeting, and the innocent occasion of the 
uproar quietly withdrew, without having been asked a 
question, or uttered a word. 

But his enemies were not to be thus baffled. They now 
determined to invest their proceedings with an authority 
to which all must bow, viz. : that of the Pope himself. — 
His Holiness gave ready ear to their application. In the 
June following the abortive meeting at St. Paul's, no less 
than five bulls were sent from Avignon to England, all 
having for their object the apprehension of Wicklifi'e, and 
his delivery to the ecclesiastical power. One was ad- 
dressed to the King, three to the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury and the Bishop of London, and one to the University 
of Oxford. The purport of all was the same. The Head 
of the Church deplores the defection of England from the 
true way, made known to him by persons of credit, so 
that she who was once the defender of the faith has be- 
come the nurse of heresy. This sad change is ascribed 
chiefly to '' the labors of John Wickliffe, Master in Di- 
vinity, more properly Master in Error, who had pro- 
ceeded to a degree of madness so detestable, as not to 
fear to assert, dogmatize, and publicly teach opinions the 
most false and erroneous, contrary to the faith, and 
tending to the entire subversion of the church." It is en- 
joined, therefore, that if, on enquiry, these charges prove 
to be well founded, said Wicklifi'e be committed to prison, 
and kept in sure custody till he shall have answered 
to the accusation, and judgment be received thereon 
from the Holy See. The Bishops are exhorted to use all 
diligence to guard the King, the Prince of Wales, the no- 
bility, and royal councillors from the infection of these 



64 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

pestilent errors. The King is called on to sustain the 
authority of the clergy, in doing their duty in the execu- 
tion of these bulls. The University is summoned, by virtue 
of the obedience due to the apostolic letters, and on pain 
of losing all graces, indulgences, and privileges granted 
to it by the Holy See, to deliver up the person of John 
Wickliffe, and of all others embracing his errors, into the 
custody of the prelates commissioned by the Pontiff for 
that purpose. 

Thus terrible to the kingdom of darkness, is a man who 
gives fearless utterance to the truth ! 

The death of Edward III., the same month in which 
these formidable instruments were prepared at Avignon, 
and the reestablishment of Lancaster's power on the acces- 
sion of the youthful Richard II., induced the prelates to 
suspend their vengeance for a time ; so that the existence 
of these bulls was known to none but themselves, until 
the following January. Meantime Wickliffe did not fail 
to give them abundant occasion, to " nurse their wrath and 
keep it warm," against the favorable hour. The first Par- 
liament under the new king, held in October, resumed with 
great spirit the subject of papal encroachment. In the 
course of the discussion, a question came up on which 
Wickliffe's opinion was demanded, it is said, in the name 
of the king, viz : " Whether the kingdom of England may 
lawfully, in case of necessity, detain and keep back the 
treasure of the kingdom for its own defence, that it be not 
carried away to foreign and strange nations, the Pope him- 
self demanding and requiring the same under pain of cen- 
sure and by virtue of obedience ?" This was not a ques- 
tion of abstract right, but one of imminent practical im- 
port at the very moment — England being then at war with 



THE POPE AND BISHOPS IN THE FIELD. 65 

France, and the French Pope, by virtue of his spiritual 
office, draining her of money to furnish weapons to her 
enemy. 

In his reply, Wickliffe, as usual, goes to the root of the 
matter, by an appeal to the nature and tenure of the apos- 
tolic office, as exhibited in the New Testament. " Christ 
saith to the Apostles : ^ The kings of the nations rule over 
them^ but ye shall not do so.' Here lordship and rule is 
forbidden to the Apostles, and darest tbou [their successor] 
usurp the same ? If thou wilt be a lord, thou shalt lose 
thy apostleship ; or, if thou wilt be an apostle, thou shalt 
lose thy lordship ; for truly thou must depart from one of 
them. If thou wilt have both, thou shalt lose both, or be 
of that number of whom God complains : ' They have 
reigned, but not through me ; they have become princes, 
and I have not known it.' Now, if it doth suffice thee to 
rule with the Lord, thou hast thy glory. But if we will 
keep what is forbidden us, let us hear what he saith : * He 
that is greatest among you, shall be made as the least ; and 
he which is highest shall be as the servant ; ' and for an ex- 
ample, he set a child in the midst of them. So then, this 
is the true form and institution of the Apostle's trade ; 

LORDSHIP AND RULE IS FORBIDDEN ; MINISTRATION AND SER- 
VICE COMMANDED." Therefore, concludes the Reformer, 
the temporal goods heretofore bestowed on the Pope were 
not his by the right aposiolical, but simply as alms, given 
at the pleasure of the donor. And as the duty of alms- 
giving is measured by the necessity of the recipient and 
the ability of the donor, it cannot be the duty of England, 
in her present impoverished condition, to bestow charity 
on the Pope, who is already overloaded with riches. 
Wherefore, England may detain her treasure for her own 






66 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

defence, even against the direct command of the Pope. 
With such simplicity and ease did WickliiFe, with the New 
Testament for his guide, loose a knot which had been tight- 
ening for centuries, and was now puzzling the wisest heads 
of the age. 

But it was now his enemies^ turn to strike a blow. Three 
months after this, a special messenger conveyed the papal 
bull, so long concealed, to Oxford, and delivered it in due 
form to the Chancellor of the University. In an accom- 
panying letter, the prelates demanded that Wickliffe be 
sent to St. Paul's, there to make answer to the charges 
against him. The University authorities, displeased with this 
papal and episcopal interference in their affairs, showed no 
haste to comply. But a synod being assembled at Lam- 
beth in April, Wickliffe promptly obeyed a summons to be 
present. 

This time, he faced his enemies alone. A written state- 
ment of his imputed errors and heresies being furnished 
him, he, in turn, replied to the charges in writing, improv- 
ing the occasion to give a still more full and distinct ex- 
position of his views. Exceptions have been taken to this 
document as, in some portions, seemingly vague and eva- 
sive in its character. But in his perfect clearness in the 
statement of views most hazardous to express before such 
an assembly, and in the manner in which the paper was 
received by his opponents, we have sufficient evidence that 
all the weapons used by the Reformer on this occasion were 
worthy of his character, and well chosen for the time and 
place. The assertion that political dominion, or civil secu- 
lar government, inheres in the laity, not in Peter or his 
successors ; and that it is lawful for the secular power to 
take away temporalities from churchmen who habitually 



THE POPE AND BISHOPS IN THE FIELD. 67 

abuse them, " notwithstanding excommunication^ or any 
other church censure j'''' could not have been misunderstood 
by the tribunal before which he was arraigned. But he 
took a yet higher and bolder tone. It had come to be un- 
derstood, that all legislative and judicial competency in reli- 
gious matters was vested in the clergy; that they, in fact, 
constituted the church ; while the part of the laity was 
simply that of implicit, blind submission. In opposition 
to this, Wickliffe maintains that ecclesiastics, nay, even the 
Pope of Rome himself, may, in some cases, be corrected by 
their subjects, and '' for the benefit of the church, be im- 
pleaded by both clergy and laity." For the Pope, he ar- 
gues, being our peccable brother and liable to sin as well as 
we, is, like us, subject to the law of brotherly reproof. 
*^ When, therefore," he proceeds, " the whole college of 
cardinals is remiss in correcting him for the necessary wel- 
fare of the church, it is evident that the rest of the body^ 
which, as it may chance, may chiefly he made up of the 
laity J may medicinally reprove and implead him, and re- 
duce him to lead a better life." 

What would have been the issue of this trial, it is not 
difficult to conjecture, had it not been averted as unexpect- 
ed as before at St. Paul's. Deliverance came, however, in 
this case, from a very different source, and in a manner 
which testified the spread of Wickliffe's opinions among the 
common people. A general alarm for his safety prevailed 
among his friends, increased, no doubt, by the fact that the 
trial was conducted before a secret tribunal. This feeling 
burst forth at last into act. The populace began to stream 
from various quarters towards the place of meeting, and 
were there joined by many of the first citizens of London. 
Pressing their way into the building, the excited crowd burst 



68 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

open the door of the council-room, and rushing in, loudly 
demanded Wickliffe. And when, in the midst of the tu- 
mult, Sir Lewis Clifford entered the assembly, and in the 
name of the Queen-Mother (widow of the Black Prince) 
forbade any definitive sentence by the Court, a panic fear 
seized on the bold churchmen. In the indignant words of 
one of their own historians,* they became " as a reed sha- 
ken by the wind, and grew soft as oil in their speech, to the 
manifest forfeiture of their dignity and the injury of the 
whole church. With such fear were they struck, that one 
would have thought them as a man who hears not, or in 
whose mouth there are no reproofs." So far from being 
detained " in custody and sure prison," while awaiting the 
decision of the Holy See, Wickliffe returned peaceably to 
Oxford, to lecture, preach, and write against the sins of 
Popery with more zeal and effect than ever. The expected 
sentence from Avignon never arrived. The death of Gre- 
gory XI. while the matter was still pending, and the dis- 
tractions incident on the " Schism of the Popes "t which 
followed, turned the attention of the clergy in another 
direction, and the Reformer was left for some three years 
longer, to pursue his career unmolested. 

* Walsingham. 
•f During the next fifty years, the Papal church was blessed with two and 
sometimes three infallible heads, who mutually accused each other as here- 
tics, Simonists, impostors, and every thing else that is vile and impious — 
*' not the worst proof." as Henry quaintly remarks, " of their infallibility." 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE NEW-TESTAMENT MNISTEY EEVIVED. 

Not far from this time, Wickliffe started a movement 
which, for its vital bearings on the interests of religion 
and for the perpetuity of its influence, stands second only 
to his great work of giving the Bible to the people 

From the study of the New Testament, he had arrived 
at certain conclusions very much at variance with the 
opinions of the time. Some of these have already been 
noted in the foregoing narrative ; but, for the sake of clear- 
ness, the principal points will here be mentioned, in con- 
nection with others. He believed — 

1 St. That the primitive church recognized no hierarchy^ 
with its ascending ranks and orders of spiritual princes. 
** By the ordinance of Christ," says he, " priests and 
bishops were all one. But afterwards, the Emperor divi- 
ded them, and made bishops to be lords, and priests their 
servants." ^' I boldly assert one thing, viz. : that in the 
primitive church or in the time of Paul, two orders of the 
clergy were sufficient, that is, a priest and a deacon. In 



70 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

like manner, I maintain that in the time of Paul, presby- 
ter and bishop were names of the same office. — All other 
degrees and orders have their origin in the pride of Caesar. 
If indeed they were necessary to the church, Christ would 
not have been silent respecting them. Every Christian 
should judge of the office of the clergy from what is taught 
in Scripture, especially in the Epistles of Timothy and 
Titus, and should not admit the new inventions of Caesar." 

2d. That the priesfs office is simply that of the minis- 
istry of the word. The legislative right claimed by 
Popes, prelates and councils, and the power of excommu- 
nication and absolution attributed to every member of the 
clerical order, were, in his view, impious invasions of the 
prerogatives of Christ. 

3d. That it is the right and duty of all priests^ hy vir- 
tue of their office^ to preach the gospel; and this, without 
waiting for any special license from bishops ; nay — so strin- 
gent is the obligation — even in the face of their prohibi- 
tion. " The highest service to which man may attain on 
earth " — such are his noble words — " is to preach the word 
of God, This service falls peculiarly to priests, and 
therefore God more straitly demands it of them. Hereby 
should they produce children to Grod, and this is the end 
for which God wedded the church. It might indeed be 
good to have a son that were lord of this world ; but better 
far to have a son in God, who, as meiiiber of holy church, 
shall ascend to heaven. And for this reason, Christ left 
other works, and occupied himself mostly in preaching, and 
thus did his apostles, and for this God loved them." — 
*' Jesus Christ, when he ascended to heaven, commanded it 
especially to all hh disciples, to go and preach the gospel 
freely to all men. So also when Christ spoke last with 



THE NEW-TESTAMENT MINISTRY REVIVED. 71 

Peter, he bade him thrice, as he loved him, to feed his 
sheep ; and this a wise shepherd would not have done, if 
he had not himself loved it well. In this stands the office 
of the spiritual shepherd. And as the bishops of the tem- 
ple hindered Christ, so is he hindered now by the hinder- 
ing of this deed. Therefore Christ told them that at the 
day of doom, Sodom and Gomorrah should fare better than 
they. And thus, if our bishops preach not themselves, and 
hinder true priests from preaching, they are in the sin of 
the bishops who killed the Lord Jesus Christ." 

4th. That the ministry is to be supported by the volun- 
tary contributions of the people. As we have seen, Wickliffe 
had long maintained, that ecclesiastical endowments were op- 
posed to the spirit of the New Testament, and were one of 
the main sources of the corruption of the clergy. But he 
goes farther than this. In his view, the system of tithes 
had no better foundation. '^ Men wonder highly," says he 
in a treatise entitled ^ The Curse Expounded ^'^ " why cu- 
rates are so severe in exacting tithes, since Christ and his 
apostles took no tithes, as men do now ; neither paid them, 
nor even spoke of them, either in the Gospel or the Epis- 
tles, which are the perfect law of freedom and grace. But 
Christ lived on the alms of holy women, as the Gospel tell- 
eth ; and the apostles lived, sometimes by the labor of 
their hands, and sometimes took a poor livelihood and 
clothing, given of free will and devotion by the people, 
without asking or constraining." " Paul proved that 
priests, preaching truly the gospel, should live by the gos- 
pel, and said naught of tithes. Certainly, tithes were due 
to priests in the Old Law — but it is not so now, in the law 
of grace." " Lord ! why should our worldly priests charge 
Christian people with tithes, offerings, and customs, more 



72 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

than did Christ and his apostles ? Would to God, that 
all wise and true men would enquire, whether it were not 
better to find good priests, by free alms of the people, with 
a reasonable and poor livelihood, to teach the gospel in 
word and deed as did Christ and his apostles, than thus to 
pay tithes to a worldly priest, ignorant and negligent, as 
men are now compelled to do by bulls and new ordinances 
of priests!"* In connexion with this, he maintains that 
ordination by a bishop confers no fitness for the sacred 
office; it is merely the outward recognition of a fitness 
which can come from God alone, and when this is proved 
to be wanting, becomes in the nature of the case, null and 
void. The people should themselves decide in this matter, 
by comparing the life of the teacher thus placed over them 
with the infallible standard of Scripture. 

The revival of the New Testament principle, in a body 

* In these views we find an easy solution of the disrepute, in which Wick- 
liffe has been held by writers of the Church of England. The pious Mil- 
ner (Church History) is filled with horror at the Reformer's radical no- 
tions of clerical emolument. It is no wonder, he thinks, that a man who 
entertained such views of tithes, should have been suspected of abetting 
Wat Tyler and other incendiaries of the time of Richard II. His illustra- 
tion of the inconvenient results of Wickliffe's doctrine is a specimen of 
naivete hardly to be excelled. " He disliked," says he, " all church endow- 
ments, and wished to have the clergy reduced to a state of poverty. He 
insists that parishioners have a right to withhold tithes from pastors who are 
guilty of fornication. Now, if, in such cases, he would have allowed every 
individual to judge for himself, who docs not see what a door might be 
opened to confusion, fraud, and the encouragement of avarice!" — luther's 
and Melancthon's prejudice against Wicklifib, is explicable on the same 
ground. They could hardly believe, that a man holding such heterodox 
views of clerical property, could understand the doctrine of justification by 
faith. Surely, *' the best of men are but men at best!" But the wincing 
proves how vital a point of State religions had been touched by the uncour- 
teous Reformer. 



THE NEW-TESTAMENT MINISTRY REVIVED. 76 

t)f pious, self denying, working ministers, depending for 
their maintenance on the voluntary contributions of those 
for whom they labored, became now one of Wickliffe's 
prime objects. His wonderful success in this undertaking 
attests how strong, and how deeply spiritual, was his influ- 
ence among the youth of Oxford. Christ himself was the 
model, on which he sought to form them for this self-deny- 
ing work. 

" Jesus himself," says he, " did indeed the lessons he 
taught. The gospel relates how he went about, in places 
of the country both great and small, in cities and castles, 
or in small towns, and this that he might teach us to be- 
come profitable to men everywhere, and not to forbear to 
preach to a people because they are few, and our name may 
not in consequence be great. For we should labor for 
God, and from Him hope for our reward. There is no 
doubt that Christ went into small uplandish towns, as to 
Bethphage and Cana in Galilee, for Christ went to all those 
places where he wished to do good. He labored not for 
gain, he was not smitten with pride or covetousness." "It 
was ever the manner of Jesus, to speak the words of God 
wherever he knew they might be profitable to those who 
heard them. Hence Christ often preached, now at meat, 
now at supper, and indeed at whatever time it was conve- 
nient for others to hear him." " Christ sought man's 
soul, lost through sin, thirty years and more, with great 
travail and weariness, and many thousand miles upon his 
feet, in cold, and storm and tempest." As the result of 
these efforts, a band of young missionaries, fully imbued 
with their instructor's views and glowing with a kindred 
zeal, dispersed themselves through the remote villages and 
hamlets of England, preaching to all who would listen, the 

4 



74 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

glad tidiDgs of a free salvation. Like the seventy sent out 
by our Lord, they went on foot, clad in coarse garments, 
the pilgrim's staff in their hands — and, if so happy as to 
own such a treasure — with a Latin Bible hid .in the bosom 
of their gowns. Wherever they found an audience — 
whether in a church or a churchyard ; in the busy market- 
place ; amidst the noisy chaffering and boisterous amuse- 
ments of the fair — there they proclaimed to the people 
" all the words of this life." To the venal sale of indul- 
gences and priestly absolution, they opposed the unbought 
grace of the gospel ; to the invocation of saints, the one 
Mediator between God and man ; to the worship of pic- 
tures and images, the worship of the one living and true 
God ; to the traditions of men and the authority of priests, 
the pure revelation of God's will in the Holy Scriptures. 
Their own blameless lives enforced their teachings. Ask- 
ing nothing, they received thankfully what was required 
for their simple wants ; and even from this were ever ready 
to spare something for the needy. The contrast thus fur- 
nished, with the gross lives and insatiable beggary of the 
Friars, was too striking to be overlooked. The apostolic 
motto, " Not yours, but you," which was written on all 
their labors, sunk with the power of demonstration into the 
people's heart. Such was their zeal, and such the eager- 
ness with which they were received, that whole shires be- 
came pervaded with their doctrines. John Ashton, it is 
said, was personally known over half of England. So 
rapid was their increase in numbers and influence within 
four years, that in 1382 a great Convocation was assem- 
bled in London, for the special purpose of concerting mea- 
sures to arrest their progress. The archbishop of Canter- 
bury, the bishops and other prelates, masters of divinity, 



THE NEW-TESTAMENT MINISTRY REVIVED. 75 

doctors of civil and canon law, and a great part of the 
clergy of the realm being there present, united in an ap- 
peal to the king for the suppression of these preachers, as 
a body of men, who were perverting the whole nation with 
their heretical and seditious doctrines. A decree, framed 
for this purpose by the assembled prelates, received the 
secret concurrence of the king and lords, and was surrep- 
titiously inserted in the statute-book as a regular Act of 
Parliament. After a statement of the imminent danger to 
the church and realm, the document thus concludes : " It 
is therefore ordained and assented in this present Parlia- 
ment, that the king's commission be made and directed to 
the sheriffs and other ministers of our sovereign lord the 
king, or other sufficient persons, and, according to the cer- 
tifications of the prelates thereof, to be made in the chan- 
cery from time to time, to arrest all such preachers, and 
also their fautors, maintainers and abettors, and hold them 
in arrest and strong prison, till they shall purify them- 
selves according to the law and reason of holy church. 
And the king willeth and commandeth, that the Chancel- 
lor make such commission at all times that he, by the pre- 
lates or any of them, shall be certified and thereof required, 
as aforesaid," 

When this fraud was discovered by the lower House, 
they insisted that the act should be repealed ; but the pre- 
lates so managed that it kept its place in the statute-book, 
and through many succeeding years formed the basis of 
prosecutions for heresy. 

The measures thus resolved on were followed up with 
energy, but with little effect. The love of the people was 
as a wall of fire round about their faithful teachers. Many 
country baronets of wealth and influence likewise espoused 



76 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

their cause ; and sometimes, when danger was apprehended, 
a body-guard of gentlemen was seen around the pulpit, 
ready, if necessary, to defend with their good swords the right 
of Englishmen to speak and to hear, according to the dic- 
tates of their own consciences. The intimidated sheriff, hav- 
ing served on the preacher a citation to appear before the bish- 
op, would retire ; and before adequate forces could be raised 
to execute the writ, the evangelist was proclaiming in some 
far-off hamlet the glad tidings of salvation to its neglected 
poor. The devices of prelates, and the decrees of kings, 
were not able to break again " the apostolic succession,'' 
thus revived by Wickliffe ; nor has it been interrupted 
from that day to the present. From that day, the Bible- 
conception of the Christian ministry, evolved in such beau- 
ful completeness by this master-spirit five hundred years 
ago, has been slowly leavening the English mind ; and from 
the conflicts for religious liberty, to which it has given 
birth, civil freedom likewise has caught its noblest im- 
pulses. To estimate its full import, we must trace its in- 
fluence through English history, till its full development, 
on these western shores, gave to the world the spectacle of 
a Christian nation, without a State Church ; where govern- 
ment is maintained, and religion flourishes, without a Bishop 
or a King. 



CHAPTER VII. 



WICKLIFFE ATTACKS THE CITADEL OF PAPAL 
INFLUENCE. 

We must now briefly contemplate Wickliffe in yet one 
more conflict, deeply interesting in itself, and still more in- 
teresting as forming the transition to the greatest, and 
closing labor of his life. 

In the years 1379-80, the subject of the Eucharist assum- 
ed a very prominent place in his lectures at Oxford. In this 
doctrine, as held in the papal church, the Reformer grappled 
with no mere airy metaphysical dogma. The welcome it 
received from the Romish clergy when first promulgated, 
in the ninth century, and the tenacity with which they 
have clung to it even down to the present day, attests 
their appreciation of its practical importance. " The sac- 
rament of communion," says a recent Catholic writer,* " is 
the highest of our mysteries, and is the central point of all 

* See the article Lord's Supper ^ in the Encyo. Americana, where the Ro- 
mish view is presented by one of its adherents with great clearness, and will 
be seen to differ in no respect from that combatted by Wickliffe in the four- 
teenth century. 



78 X THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the institutions of the Catholic church." And again: 
" The Catholic view of communion pervades the whole 
Catholic religious and ecclesiastical system." ^' By the 
reformation of the sixteenth century, the whole Catholic 
system was attacked ; as the reformers, rejecting the tradi- 
tions of the church, took the Bible alone for their guide in 
matters of belief, and departed, at the same time, from the 
Catholic theory of communion. If they had left the Catho- 
lic doctrine on communion, the priesthood and mass would 
necessarily have remained too." A consideration of a few 
leading points involved in the doctrine fully justifies these 
assertions ; and shows that it forms the dividing line be- 
tween Romanism, with its traditions, its mystic sense, and 
its blind submission to the priesthood, on the one side, and 
on the other. Protestantism, with its respect for the human 
understanding, and its acceptance of the Bible as supreme 
authority. 

Its very starting-point was the repudiation of the bodily 
senses, of the reason, and of Scripture, as reliable sources 
of evidence. The dictum of the church was here all and 
in all. Sight, smell, taste, touch, though obstinately re- 
porting the bread to be still bread ; the plainest conclu- 
sions of reason, and the obvious import of Scripture ; all 
weighed nothing in opposition to that " mystic sense," 
which the church had seen fit to impose on the ordinance 
of the Supper. So interpreted, it presented a strange 
combination of Jewish and Pagan ideas under christian 
names. It was Jewish, in its notion of a perpetually re- 
peated sacrifice for sin ; for, at each performance of mass, 
the living Christ, *' body and blood, soul and divinity," 
was offered anew as a propitiation to the Father ! It was 
Pagan, in its worship of an inanimate, created object as 



WICKLIFFE ATTACKS THE PAPAL CITADEL. 79 

God, and in its multiplication of gods. For not only did 
the wafer become, by the consecrating words, a proper ob- 
ject of adoration, but each separate fragment into which 
it was broken contained the whole Christ, and was to be 
worshiped as such. Of the spiritual worship of the one 
invisible, uncreated God, and of the atonement made by 
Christ, once for all, nothing was left but these monstrous, 
distorted shadows. 

From this view of the Lord's Supper, necessarily pro- 
ceeded that of the mysterious sanctity and prerogatives of 
the clerical office. Who could set limits to the spiritual 
power of one, who could thus '* make his Maker ?" By what 
arguments could the credulous believer be persuaded, that 
anathemas and absolutions from lips that pronounced the 
awful '^ Hoc corpus meum," were of no effect ? The sim- 
ple minister of the word thus rose into the dignity of a 
sacrificing priest, whose consecrated hands offered the 
atonement, without which there was no remission of sins. 
Nay, he could reach even to the place of departed spirits, 
and there reverse the decisions of God himself on those 
who had died in sin. It was chiefly through this doctrine, 
that the Romish clergy had obtained their strange sway 
over the minds of men ; for having, in regard to this vital 
point, given up the Scriptures, reason, and their very 
senses, into the keeping of their spiritual guides, there was 
nothing to save them from being blind victims of every 
other imposition. Body and soul were both sealed for 
bondage. The outer light of Scripture was taken away ; 
the light that was in them became darkness. 

There has been much controversy, a^ to the precise views 
entertained by Wickliffe himself in regard to the Eucharist, 
originating probably in a misapprehension of the obscure 



80 THE ENGLISH BIBLE, 

scholastic language of his learned discussions. Nothing can 
be the more explicit, or satisfactory, than the views expressed 
in his English writings on the subject, intended for the com- 
mon people. Thus in his " Wyckett," an English treatise in 
defence of the Scripture doctrine of the Supper, he asks : 
** May the thing made turn again and make him that made 
it ? Thou then that art an earthly man, by what reason 
mayst thou say that thou makes t thy Maker ? Were this 
doctrine true, it would follow that the thing which is not 
God to-day, shall be God to-morrow ; yea, the thing that 
is without spirit of life, but groweth in the field by nature, 
shall another time be God. And yet we ought to believe 
that God is without beginning or ending." " Christ 
saith, I am a very vine. Wherefore do ye not worship 
the vine for God, as ye do the bread? Wherein was 
Christ a very vine ? Or wherein was the bread Christ's 
body ? It was m figurative speech, which is hidden to the 
understanding of sinners. And thus, as Christ became 
not a material or earthly vine, nor a material vine the 
body of Christ, so neither is material bread changed for its 
substance into the flesh and blood of Christ." 

But whether, in that dark age, he attained to perfect 
light on this or other doctrines, is to us of little moment, 
compared with his noble vindication of the two great Pro- 
testant principles — the word of God the sole guide in 
matters of religion ; individual inquiry and conviction the 
right and duty of all men. 

It was from this purely Protestant stand-point, that 
Wickliife assailed the vital dogma of the Papacy. He 
resented the indignity it offered, both to the reason which 
God had kindled as a light in the soul of man, and to the 
revelation of his own will in the Scriptures. '^ Of all the 



WICKLIFFE ATTACKS THE PAPAL CITADEL. 81 

heresies that have ever sprung up in the church," thus he 
writes in the Trialogus, " I think there is not one more 
artfully introduced by hypocrites, or one imposing such 
manifold fraud on the people. It repudiates the Scrip- 
tures ; it wrongs the people ; it causes them to commit 
idolatry. It is not reasonable to suppose, that God can 
have designed to put confusion on that intelligence, which 
he has himself implanted in our nature. Of all the ex- 
ternal senses that God has bestowed on man, touch and 
taste are the least liable to err in the judgment they give. 
But this heresy would overturn the evidence of these 
senses, and without cause ; surely the sacrament which 
does that must be a sacrament of Antichrist." " Let the 
knowledge obtained by our external senses deceive us, and 
the internal senses will, of necessity, fall under the same 
delusion. But what," he exclaims, ^'can have moved the 
Lord Jesus Christ, thus to confound and destroy all power 
'of natural discernment, in the senses and minds of his wor- 
shipers ?" " It is," he says in his Trialogus, '^ as if the 
Devil had been scheming to this effect, saying, — ' If I can, 
by my vicar Antichrist, so far seduce believers as to bring 
them to deny that this sacrament is bread, and to believe 
in it as a contemptible quality without a substance, I may 
after that, and in the same manner, lead them to believe 
whatever I may wish ; inasmuch as the opposite is plainly 
taught, both by the language of Scripture, and by the very 
senses of mankind.' Doubtless, after a while, these simple- 
hearted believers may be brought to say, that however a 
prelate may live — be he effeminate, a homicide, a simon- 
ist, or stained with any other vice — this must never be 
believed concerning him by a people who would be re- 
garded as duly obedient. But by the grace of Christ, I 



82 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

will keep clear of the heresy, which teaches that if the Pope 
and Cardinals assert a certain thing to be the seuse of 
Scripture, therefore so it is; for that were to set them 
above the •Apostles." 

But thoush he would not allow the witness of the hu- 
man senses and reason to be set aside by mere church 
authority, the Scriptures were, on this as on every other 
doctrine, the only infallible guide. " Let every man," he 
says in the conclusion of his * Wyckett,' ^^ wisely, with 
much care and great study, and also with charity, read the 
words of God in the Holy Scriptures." '' Now, therefore, 
pray we heartily to God that this evil time may be made 
short, for the sake of the chosen men, as he hath promised 
in his holy Gospel, and that the large and broad way to 
perdition may be stopped, and that the straight and narrow 
way which leadeth to bliss may be made open by the Holy 
Scriptures, that we may know what is the will of God, to 
serve him with truth and holiness, in the dread of God, 
that we may find by him a way of bliss everlasting. So 
be it !" 

For two or three years, Wicklifi'e was zealously engaged 
in disseminating these views in the lecture-room, in the 
pulpit, and by his ever active pen. That he was permitted to 
do it so long unquestioned, he owed chiefly to the distrac- 
tions in the Papacy, which, for a long period, furnished 
the prelates of Christendom with full occupation. But 
from the sequel, it is clear that his course was watched 
by eager foes, who were merely ** biding their time." — 
Such he had even at Oxford, and by various changes, they 
at length came to have the iiscendency in the University 
administration. In the spring of 1381, Wickliffe chal- 
lenged the University to a public disputation on the sub- 



WICKLIFFE ATTACKS THE PAPAL CITADEL. 83 

ject of the Eucharist. In the twelve theses which he pub- 
lished as the basis of the discussion, he declared that '' the 
bread we see on the altar is not Christ, nor any part of 
him, but simply an effectual sign of him ; and that the 
doctrines of transubstantiation, identification, and impana- 
tion, have no basis in Scripture." This brought on the crisis. 
Barton, their Chancellor, being a partizan of the Keligious 
Orders, and, of course, hostile to Wickliffe, resolved that 
he should not have the eclat of a victory at Oxford. In- 
stead, therefore, of responding to his challenge, he assem- 
bled a secret council of twelve theological doctors, eight 
being from the Orders, who unanimously pronounced 
Wickliffe's doctrine to be erroneous, and contrary to the 
determinations of the church. They decreed, furthermore, 
that '' if any person, of whatever degree, state, or condi- 
tion, shall in future publicly teach such doctrine in the 
University, or shall listen to one so teaching, he shall be 
suspended from all scholastic exercises, shall be liable to 
the greater excommunication, and shall be committed to 
prison." Truly, a compendious method for purging Oxford 
of heresy I 

Wickliffe was seated in his lecture-room, discussing this 
very subject before his class, when the University officers 
entered, and announced the above decrees. It has been 
asserted by his enemies, that he betrayed some confusion 
while listening to the proclamation. It surely would 
argue no remarkable weakness, had so sudden and rude an 
assault — and in that place of all others — shaken his firm 
spirit for the moment. Wickliffe was not a man of iron 
nerves, but, as we see from his portrait, and from the re- 
flection of his life and writings, of the most quick and lively 
sensibility. The emotion was but for an instant. Rising 



84 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

with dignity, as soon as the reading of the official document 
was finished, he protested against this arbitrary suppression 
of opinions, which could not be confuted in a free discus- 
sion, and declared his intention to appeal to the King for 
the protection of his rights. 

The Chancellor's power could not reach beyond Oxford. 
Wicklifi'e therefore retired to Lutterworth, and devoted 
himself to writing and preaching, while awaiting a reversal 
of Berton's unjust decision. But this never came. The 
rude dismissal, thus described, proved to be the close of 
his connection with a school of sacred learning, of which 
he had been so long the most illustrious ornament. No 
doubt it was an event in many ways painful to himself, 
and exulted in by his enemies as a signal, if not final vic- 
tory over the bold Reformer. Could they have foreseen 
the result, they would have left him unmolested in the 
Professor's chair. Their short-sighted hatred served but 
to introduce that crowning period of his labors, which gave 
to priestcraft in England its deadly wound, and made his 
influence and name imperishable. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



WICKLIFFE'S WRITINGS FOR THE PEOPLE. 

From the period of Wickliffe's retirement to Lutter- 
worth, a marked change appears in the direction of his 
labors. The plans of reform, on which he had spent so 
large a portion of his best years, seemed now farther from 
realization than ever. All hope of improvement proceed- 
ing from the ^' Head of the Church," from the clergy, or 
from the enlightened action of the secular power, was now 
seen to be vain. Even Oxford, the last refuge of intellec- 
tual and religious freedom, had barred her doors against 
him. It all served but to ripen in his mind the great idea, 
by which his labors were to be separated from the decay- 
ing Past, and to receive a living, organic connexion with 
the whole future of his country and his race. He turns 
from king and noble, from Pope, and priest and scholar, 
with the determination to place the light of divine truth, 
freed from all veil or covering, in the honest keeping of 
the common people. 

Under the inspiration of this idea, Wickliffe entered 



86 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

with redoubled vigor on the final stage of his activity. He 
was now in his fifty-seventh year ; and though disease, and 
the excitements of his stormy life had shaken his bodily 
frame, the eagle spirit seemed gifted with more than youth- 
ful fire. Never before had he exhibited such productive 
energy. His English writings for the people budded under 
his pen like leaves in spring. It is evident, from various 
passages in his works, that he looked upon this golden 
opportunity as very brief; that persecution, to close per- 
haps in martyrdom, was among the anticipations of each 
to-morrow. He labored, therefore, as one who has a mes- 
sage of life and death to deliver, and fears he may not have 
time to utter it. ^^I should be worse than an infidel " — 
thus he writes in one of his works on the Eucharist — 
" were I not to defend unto the death, the law of Christ ; 
and certain I am, that it is not in the power of the heretics, 
and disciples of An ti- Christ, to impugn this evangelical 
doctrine. On the contrary, I trust through our Lord's 
mercy, to be superabundantly rewarded, after this short 
and miserable life, for the lawful contention which I wage. 
I know from the Gospel, that Anti-Christ, with all his 
devices, can only kill the body; but Christ, in whose cause 
I contend, can cast both body and soul into hell-fire. Sure 
I am, that he will not sufibr his servants to want what is 
needful for them, since he freely exposed himself to a dread- 
ful death for their sakes, and has ordained that all his 
most beloved disciples should pass through severe suffering 
with a view to their good." 

It is a matter of regret, that the limits of this sketch 
allow only of a few brief extracts from these writings, so 
characteristic of the genius and spirit of the man. The 
whole'range of subjects which had formed the groundwork 



wickliffe's writings for the people. 87 

of his life-labors, was here presented in a form admirably 
adapted to the common mind. In his own noble, homely, 
expressive English, the true language of the people, he 
unmasks the character, the false pretensions and corrupt 
doctrines of the priesthood ; and encourages the humble 
reader, in the exercise of the understanding which God has 
given him, enlightened by the Scriptures, to meet them like 
a free Christian man. They are not, however, mainly of a 
controversial nature, though most of them must, of neces- 
sity, contain pointed allusions to the specific sins and errors 
of the clergy. But his chief object, in the exposure of 
error, is to gain for the great saving truths of the Gospel, 
an immediate, life-imparting contact with the souls of his 
readers. He seeks to detach them from their false guides, 
only that he may lead them to the one Saviour from sin 
and misery. 

Among the most interesting of his offerings to the poor 
and humble in society, are those little treatises, designed 
strictly as helps to a devout and holy life. His English 
writings, in general, are characterized by a brevity singular 
in that day of interminable folios. But these mark still 
more strikingly, the practical genius of the Reformer. 
Our modern religious tracts, that mighty agency for the 
diffusion of truth, are but the reproduction of the device 
struck from his prophetic brain five hundred years ago. 
^^ The Tool' Caitiff''''^ is a collection of such little detached 
pieces, none of them extending beyond a few pages, some 
only over a leaf or two, and others but a single page. 
From their extreme brevity, they could be multiplied and 
scattered almost without limit, even in an age when print- 

* Published in tho "British Reformers" of the London Religious Tract 
Society. Caitiff was the common appella/.ion of a person in the lower ranks. 



88 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

ing was unknown. It has been well said of Dr. Watts, 
that the true greatness of his character nowhere appears so 
clearly as in his *' Divine Songs for Children." With yet 
deeper reverence do we sit at the feet of Wickliffe, the 
royal ambassador, the friend of princes, the most eminent 
scholar of his time, as with sublime simplicity, humility, 
and sweetness, he speaks to the neglected and degraded 
poor, these heavenly words of instruction and consolation. 
They are the best refutation of the malevolent charge that 
his influence tended to popular disorder. Two or three 
passages must suffice here. 

** To any degree of true love to Jesus, no soul can attain 
unless he be truly meek. For a proud soul seeks to have 
his own will, and so he shall never come to any degree of 
God's love. Ever the lower that a soul sitteth in the val- 
ley of meekness, so many the more streams of grace and 
love come thereto. And if the soul be high in the hills 
of pride, the wind of the fiend bloweth away all manner of 
goodness therefrom." *' Singular love is, when all solace 
and comfort is closed out of the heart but the love of Jesus 
alone. Other delight or other joy pleases not; for the 
sweetness of him is so comforting and lasting, his love is 
so burning and gladdening, that he who is in this degree 
may well feel the fire of love burning in his soul. That 
fire is so pleasant that no man can tell but he that feeleth 
it, and not fully he. Then the soul is Jesus loving, on 
Jesus thinking, and Jesus desiring, only burning in covet- 
ing of him; singing in him, resting on him. Then the 
thought turns to song and melody." ^^ God playeth with 
his child when he suflfereth him to be tempted ; as a mother 
rises from her much beloved child, and hides herself and 
leaves him alone, and suffers him to cry. Mother, Mother, 



wickliffe's writings for the people. 89 

so that he looks about, cries and weeps for a time ; and at 
last when the child is ready to be overset with troubles and 
weeping, she comes again, clasps him in her arms, kisses 
him and wipes away the tears. So our Lord suffereth his 
loved child to be tempted and troubled for a time, and 
withdraweth some of his solace and full protection, to see 
what his child will do ; and when he is about to be over- 
come by temptations, then he defendeth him and comfort- 
eth him by his grace." 

These writings were the text-books of piety to the perse- 
cuted church of Christ, for more than a hundred years ; 
and next to the English Bible, were the most efficient 
agency in moulding its opinions and character, and in 
making ready, against the happier times to come, a people 
for the Lord. They often had the honor of being cast with 
the inspired word into the flames, or of mingling their 
ashes with those of the martyr, convicted of having read 
and believed their words, on whose faithful bosom they 
had been hung as a mark of shame. So largely were they 
multiplied, and so sacredly treasured by the people, that 
after a century and a half of rigid proscription and de- 
struction, it was found no very difficult matter to make 
entire collections of these writings. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE FIRST ENGLISH BIBLE. 

But Wickliffe's great work for the people was not yet 
done. The labors just narrated^ though in themselves in- 
estimable, were but the pioneers of one infinitely more im- 
portant; but voices, crying through the waste places of 
England, " Prepare the way of the Lord !" This crown- 
ing work, even now progressing amidst the hurry and 
pressure of his other toils, was the Translation of the 
ENTIRE Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments into 
THE English tongue. 

There is no reason to suppose that this was a new idea 
to Wickliffe's mind. In the nature of the case, it could 
hardly be so. From the very beginning of his career, we 
have seen him vindicating the supreme authority of the 
Scriptures against that of the self-styled church. His ap- 
peal was ever to " the Law and the Testimony." *' Who- 
ever spoke not according to this word," though it were the 
infallible Head of Christendom, " there was no light in 
him." In his efforts to enlighten the laity, the need of the 



THE FIRST ENGLISH BIBLE. 91 

inspired standard of truth, in their own language, must 
have pressed itself upon him with increasing weight. We 
find, accordingly, that even during the hurry of his public 
life, he had found leisure to prepare, from time to time, 
translations of single portions of the New Testament, in 
connection with expositions, for the use of the people. In 
the prologues to these works, the propriety and duty of 
giving the Scriptures to the laity, in their mother tongue, 
is claimed in the most explicit manner. Thus, in the pro- 
logue to Luke, he says :* " Therefore a poor caitiff, let 
from preaching for a time for causes known of God, writeth 
the Gospel of Luke in English, with a short exposition of 
old and holy doctors, to the poor men of his nation, which 
know little Latin or none, and be poor of wit and worldly 
chattel, and natheless, rich of good will to please God. — 
Thus, with God's grace, poor christian men may somedeal 
know the text of the Gospel, with the common sentence of 
old holy doctors, and therein know the meek and poor and 
charitable living of Christ and his apostles, to sue them in 
virtues and in bliss ; and also know the proud and covet- 
ous and veniable living of Antichrist and his followers, to 
flee them and their cursed deeds, and pains of hell. For, 
no doubt, as our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles pro- 
fess plainly, Antichrist and his cursed disciples should 
come, and deceive many men by hypocrisy and tyranny ; 
and the best armor of christian men against this cursed 
chieftain with his host, is the text of holy writ. Christ 
Jesus, for thine endless power, mercy, and charity ,• make 

thy blessed law known and kept of thy people 

Amen, good Lord Jesus !" So in his prologue to John's 
Gospel : '^ Our Lord Jesus Christ, very God and very 

■* Preface to Wickliffe's Bible. 



92 * THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

man, came to serve poor meek men, and to teach them the 
Gospel ; and for this cause St. Paul saith that he and 
other apostles of Christ be servants of christian men by 
our Lord Jesus Christ. And he saith also, I am debtor 
to wise men and unwise ; and, Bear ye the charges of one 
another, and so ye shall fill the law of Christ. Therefore 
a simple creature of God, willing to bear, in part, the 
charges of simple poor men well willing in God's cause, 
writeth a short gloss in English on the Gospel of John." 
These earlier translations mark a tendency in Wicklifi*e's 
mind, which could hardly faij to expand, under favorable 
circumstances, into the purpose to give the whole Bible 
to his countrymen. Accordingly, from the period of his 
retirement from Oxford, the right of the laity to the Scrip- 
tures forms a prominent subject in his writings; and is 
vindicated with a noble confidence in divine truth, and in 
the intelligence and honesty of the common mind, which 
some modern Protestants would do well to study. The 
following paragraph is worthy of being written in letters of 
gold : " As the faith of the church is contained in the 
Scriptures, the more these are known in their true meaning 
the better ; and inasmuch as secular men should assuredly 
understand the faith they profess, that faith should be 
taught them in whatever language may be best known to 
them. Forasmuch, also, as the doctrines of our faith are 
more clearly and exactly expressed in the Scriptures, than 
they may probably be by priests, — seeing, if I may so 
speak, that many prelates are but too ignorant of Holy Scrip- 
ture, while others conceal many parts of it ; and as the 
verbal instructions of priests have many other defects, — 
the conclusion is abundantly manifest, that believers should 
ascertain for themselves what are the true matters of their 



THE FIRST ENGLISH BIBLE. 93 

faith, by having the Scriptures in a language which they 
fully understand. For the laws made by prelates are not 
to be received as matters of faith, nor are we to confide in 
their public instructions, nor in any of their words, but 
as they are founded on Holy Writ, — since the. Scriptures 
contain the whole truth. And this translation of them 
into English should therefore do at least this good, viz. : 
placing bishops and priests above suspicion as to the parts 
of it which they profess to explain. Other means, such as 
the friars, prelates, the pope, may all prove defective ; and 
to provide against this, Christ and his Apostles evangel- 
ized the greater portion of the world, by making known 
the Scriptures to the people in their own language. To 
this end, indeed, did the Holy Spirit endow them with the 
knowledge of tongues. Why, then, should not the living 
disciples of Christ do in this respect as they did ?" 

It may properly be asked, what is the difference in re- 
spect to the great principle here involved, whether it be a 
Popish or a Protestant clergy which stands between the 
Scriptures and the people ; or whether it be the whole, or 
only a part, of God's word which they retain in their con- 
secrated keeping ? 

The realization, for his own countrymen, of this mani- 
fest purpose of God in respect to all nations, now became 
the leading object of Wickliffe's efforts. Calling in the 
assistance of the ripest scholars among his followers, he 
prosecuted the task with such vigor, that, in the year 
1384, the entire translation was completed. The forge in 
the old rectory study must have glowed day and night 
during this period ; and yet, in such consummate silence 
did the hallowed labor proceed, that it was doing its work 
among the people before its existence was suspected by 



94 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the clergy. The yell of rage with which they greeted its 
appearance, betrayed their consciousness that the ancient 
foundations of their power were shaken. 

This ancient version was not, indeed, made from the 
original sources — the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. No 
copies of these existed at that time in all western Europe. 
Through converted Jewish scholars, a slight interest in 
the study of Hebrew had already been awakened on the 
continent ; but this had not yet extended to England. It 
had fared even worse with the Grreek language, which was 
now as unknown on the island as though it had never had 
an existence. 

In making his version from the Latin Vulgate, Wick- 
liffe, therefore, only submitted to a necessity. It is matter 
of thankfulness, that, in the absence of the original Scrip- 
tures, so good a representative of them * should have been 
within his reach. Jerome, who was the first Biblical 
scholar of his age, was thoroughly acquainted with both 
Grreek and Hebrew ; and his version, being executed in the 
fourth century, was based on manuscripts older, by several 
centuries, than those to which later English translators 
had access. Hence, in not a few instances, Wickliffe's 
translation gives the true meaning of a passage, where its 
successors failed to do so. But, on the other hand, the dis- 
advantages of translating from a translation, especially in the 
case of a book so ancient and so peculiar as the Bible, are 
of a very serious character. The copy follows the model 

* "Tho Vulgate," says the learned and judicious Dr. George Campbell, 
** is, in the main, a good and faithful version." In reference to the accu- 
palion th;it it favors Poperj, he adds : " Could this point be evinced in 
a satisfactory manner, it would allow more to Popery, on the score of anti- 
quity, th:in, in my opinion, she is entitled to." 



THE FIRST ENGLISH BIBLE. 95 

in its errors as well as its excellencies. Some portions of 
the Vulgate were executed with unpardonable haste ; and 
in many points, Jerome was deterred from doing justice 
to his own scholarship, by the storm of calumny and abuse 
brought upon him by his deviations from the defective 
versions then in popular use. In such cases, there was no 
help for Wickliffe, except where Jerome was courageous 
enough to protest against his own translation in his notes. 
In the course of ten centuries, moreover, the text of the 
Vulgate itself had suffered much from the carelessness or 
the arbitrary alterations of its monkish transcribers ; and 
though repeated attempts had been made for restoring it, 
the Latin Bibles of the fourteenth century were far from 
being a perfect representation of the original work. It is 
plain that a version, executed under these circumstances, 
could only serve a temporary purpose, and must give 
place to another when the advance of learning should 
restore the sacred originals to the hands of christian 
scholars. 

But Wickliffe's Bible has a glory which cannot be 
affected by its critical deficiencies. Its appearance was 
the virtual settlement of the great question of Christendom : 
^' Shall the people have the Scriptures ?" It was the 
prophecy and the earnest of Protestantism. 

Soon after the completion of this great work, Wickliffe 
w^as summoned from the toils and conflicts of life. On the 
29th of December, 1384, as he was performing divine ser- 
vice in the church at Lutterworth, he was seized with 
paralysis ; and after lingering two or three days in a state 
of unconsciousness, the great soul which had struggled so 
long and so bravely against the hosts of darkness, awoke' 
in the joy of its Lord. 



96 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Within four years from his death, a revision of his 
translation was given to the public by his most intimate 
pupil and friend, John Purvey, being executed, no doubt, 
in obedience to his own injunctions. The alterations are 
confined mainly to those portions of the Old Testament 
ascribed to Wickliffe's chief coadjutor. Dr. Nicholas Here- 
ford — a good scholar according to his age, but too literal 
and stiff in his renderings. The remaining books of the Old 
Testament, and the whole of the New, were touched with 
caution, and retained almost unchanged the first impress 
of the master-hand. 



CHAPTER X. 



INFLUENCE OF WIOKLIFFE'S VERSION. 

From the nations speaking the English tongue, Wick- 
liffe's version has claims to grateful reverence, which have 
never yet been fully appreciated. England's first Bible, 
it was, for a hundred and thirty years, her only one. — 
Not only so, but it constituted her earliest popular litera- 
ture. For, with the exception of Wickliffe's own writings, 
it was the first book of any magnitude ever written in the 
English language. The noble Saxon of our forefathers, 
displaced at the Conquest, by Latin as the language of 
books, and by Norman-French as that of polite life, be- 
came the badge of degradation and servitude. The 
English, into which it gradually changed, by a mixture 
with Latin and French, had, in process of time, so far re- 
gained the ancient rights of the vernacular, as to be, at this 
period, the spoken language of the great body of the people. 
Yet in such contempt was it still held, that scarcely an at- 
tempt had been made to use it in composition, till Wickliffe, 
with his great heart of love for the people, laid hold of it 

5 



98 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

as the vehicle of religious instruction. He took the rude 
elements directly from the lips of the despised ploughmen,- 
mechanics, and tradesmen. He gave it back to them in all 
its unadorned, picturesque simplicity; but fused by the 
action of his powerful mind into a fitting instrument of 
thought, and enriched with the noblest literature which 
the world has produced ; the utterances of inspired poets, 
prophets, and apostles, the inimitable histories, narratives, 
and portraitures, through which divine wisdom has told the 
sublime story of providence and redemption. 

What seeds were those then sown in the virgin soil of 
the common English mind ! What must have been the 
quickening of intellectual life, in a community where the 
Book of books furnished almost the only aliment of the 
hungry soul ! Were not the children eager to read for 
themselves those wondrous stories ? Did not the ear of 
age forget its deafness, to hear the glad tidings of a Sa- 
viour and a future rest ? Would not a new consciousness 
of worth steal into the soul of the rude clown, when he 
learned what God had done to redeem him ? The more 
deeply we enter into the circumstances and spirit of the 
times, the stronger will grow the conviction, that this first 
English Bible must have been like an awakening breath 
from heaven, the beginning of days to the common people 
of England. 

As has been remarked before, no book before the inven- 
tion of printing, ever had such advantages for becoming 
widely known. Wicklifi*e, the great practical reformer, 
with his thorough knowledge of all classes of English 
society, had not urged through this gigantic task as a mere 
experiment. He had his eye on a definite, practicable re- 
sult, the means for accomplishing which were in his own 



mFLUENCE OF WICKLIFFe's VERSION. 99 

hands. Aside from the demand for the Scriptures, excited 
by his general influence during a long public career, he 
had at command one of the most effective agencies of 
modern publication. The active, hardy, itinerant preachers 
whom he had sent out to proclaim, by word of mouth, glad 
tidings to the poor, who had threaded every part of Eng- 
land, and become intimately acquainted with the character 
and wants of its population, now formed a band of colpor- 
teurs for the written word. They knew in what far-off 
hamlets, pious souls Vere counting the days to the return 
of their missionary, and pining for the bread of life ; what 
thinking merchants and tradesmen in the great towns, 
what honorable men and women among the country gentry, 
were eager to search the Scriptures, whether these things 
were so. Several copyists, no doubt, had kept pace with the 
progress of the translation ; and as fast as a few chapters, or 
a book was completed, these faithful agents would make 
known the priceless treasure in the homes of the people. — 
Many a touching scene might be imagined, of rustic 
groups by the wayside, in the churchyard, or around the 
peat fire at evening, listening for the first time to the 
words of the Bible in their mother tongue. Then, how 
would the beautifully written manuscript be passed round, 
from hand to hand, to be admired and wondered at ; and 
not seldom to be wet with tears from eyes that beheld for 
the first time, in English characters, the name of Jesus ! 
Nor would the missionary be suffered to depart, before a 
copy, of at least some portion, had been obtained. If no 
professional copyist was to be found, hands all unused to 
the labor of the pen would scrawl painfully a rude trans- 
cript of a Psalm, of the Ten Commandments, a few chap- 
ters of the Gospels, or of Paul's epistles, to remain as a 



100 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

lamp of heavenly light, when the living preacher had de- 
parted. It is a fact of intensest interest and significance, 
that numerous fragments of this kind were subsequently 
found among the Lollards. True, a large majority of the 
middle and lower ranks, must have depended for their 
knowledge of the holy oracles on the ear alone. But 
when the memory is little occupied, and the heart writes 
the lesson on its tablets, much of the very language of Scrip- 
ture may even thus be handed down, unimpaired, through 
successive generations. The truth of this is abundantly 
verified in the history of Wicklifi'e's later followers, as 
sketched in the second part of this work. 

When first sent abroad, moreover, the version enjoyed the 
sunshine of royal favor, in the person of Anne of Bohemia, 
the accomplished wife of Richard II., who was herself a 
devoted student and advocate of the Scriptures. Though 
she was soon withdrawn by death, yet in the Providence 
of God, nearly twenty years elapsed before its progress was 
materially checked by persecution. It needs no documents 
to assure us that during this period, copies must have been 
rapidly multiplied and difi'used far and wide over England. 
The hundred and seventy copies, more or less complete, 
which have come down to our own time, are the index of 
many times that number which perished by use, by acci- 
dent, or by the flames of Komish bonfires. 

But we have more direct evidence ; the testimony 
of contemporaneous opposers of vernacular translations. 
The language of Knyghton, a distinguished writer of 
the Romish Church, recognizes the firm hold it had secured 
of the public mind, but a short time after the death of 
the translator. " The Gospel," says he, ^* which Christ 
committed to the Clergy and Doctors of the church, that 



INFLUENCE OF WICKLIFFE's VERSION. 101 

they might siveetly dispense it to the laity ^ according to 
the exigency of the times and the wants of men, this 
Master John Wickliffe has translated into the Anglic 
(not Angelic)* tongue ; thereby making it more open and 
common to the laity, and to women who can read, than 
formerly it was to the best instructed among the clergy. 
And thus the Gospel pearl is cast forth, and is trodden 
under foot of swine ; and what was once reverenced by 
clergy and laity is become, as it were, the common jest of 
both ; and the jewel of the clergy, their peculiar treasure, 
is made forever common to the laity." 

The rapid spread among all classes of the laity, of 
Wickliffe's sentiments in regard to the Papacy, fully jus- 
tified the apprehensions of the clergy. The House of 
Commons was so infected with the dangerous principles of 
religious liberty, as to render it a very uncomfortable 
instrument to manage ; and even among the nobles a con- 
siderable number took decided ground on the same side. 
The dreaded weapon of ridicule came freely into play in 
the conflict, and did its usual execution. Pasquinades, 
satirizing the ignorance and vices of the clergy, were posted 
up at St. Paul's, and other public places, and were soon in 
the mouths of the whole populace. 

Had the tide of popular feeling received no check, the 
emancipation of England from the Papal yoke might have 
been anticipated by more than a century. But the Refor- 
mation would probably have been to a fatal degree unsound 
and superficial. There was first a work to be done in the 
nation's heart. 

In 1395, during Richard's absence for the conquest of 

* A taunt upon the despised vernacular, as too rude and uncouth for such 
a purpose. 



102 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Ireland, the aspect of public opinion became so alarming 
that the prelates dispatched messengers entreating his 
return without delay. " As soon," says a contemporary 
popish historian, " as he heard the report of the commis- 
sioners, being inspired by the Divine Spirit, he hastened 
back, thinking it more necessary to defend the church than 
to conquer kingdoms." His stringent measures towards 
the offending nobles, soon reduced them to submission ; 
many others, of course, followed in their wake, and the 
cause exchanged the prestige of success and distinguished 
patronage for the humiliation of defeat. When, in 1399, 
Henry IV., son of the Duke of Lancaster Wickliffe's 
former friend, succeeded to the throne, the hopes of the 
party revived. But Henry's title needed the support of 
the clergy, and the price of their aid was the sacrifice of the 
cause, of which both his father and himself had once been 
advocates. His first act was to send a messenger to an 
ecclesiastical assembly, then in session at St. Paul's, 
*' begging the prayers of the church for the King and King- 
dom, and promising that he would protect the cler^ in all 
their liberties and immunities, and assist them with all his 
power in exterminating heretics." He kept his word but 
too faithfully. 

It was a bitter but wholesome disappointment. The 
political enthusiasm, that mere transient reflection of the 
true light from worldly minds, soon died out under the 
cruel persecutions which followed ; but the religious prin- 
ciple grew strong in the good and honest hearts, who loved 
the truth because it was of God. During the next quar- 
ter of a century, " the flower of martyrdom," of which 
Wickliffe had spoken, was won by a noble line of Chris- 
tian heroes, representing widely separated classes of society. 



INFLUENCE OF WICKLIFFe's VERSION 103 

Thomas Badby, the tailor; John Claydon, the farrier; 
Thorpe and Sawtree, the learned clergymen ; Cobham, the 
mirror of chivalry and manly piety, stand side by side, as 
equal champions for the faith of Christ; while a multitude en- 
dured trials of cruel mockings,and scourgings, and imprison- 
ment in loathsome dungeons, whose names are lost on earth. 
Throughout this period, the books of Wickliffe, and 
especially his translation of the Bible, are recognized as 
the grand source of hereby. The statute of 1401, procured 
by Archbishop Arundel, made the possession of any of his 
writings punishable by death at the stake. In 1408, it 
was decreed by the clergy in convocation assembled, "that 
no school-master should hereafter mix religious instruction 
with the teaching of youth, nor permit discussion about 
the sacraments, nor the reading of the Scri'ptures in Eng- 
lish ; that books of this sort, written by John Wickliffe, and 
others of his time, should be banished from schools, halls, and 
all places whatsoever ; that no man hereafter should trans- 
late any part of Scripture into English on his own authority ; 
and that all persons convicted of making or using such 
translations should be punished as favorers of error and 
heresy." In 1417, the right of sanctuary allowed to 
the highway robber and murderer, was denied by a formal 
act of parliament, to men whose only crime was that of 
reading the Scriptures in English. What better proof 
than these measures could be asked, of the wide diffusion 
and influence of Wickliffe's Bible ? Under the action of 
the statute last mentioned, so many were implicated in Lon- 
don and elsewhere, and so serious were the confiscations of 
property, that the King himself (Henry V.,) was obliged 
to interpose, and hold the officers of the law in check by 
royal authority. 



104 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

During the political agitations of the reign of Henry VI., 
public attention was effectually diverted from religious 
controversy, and the Lollards gradually disappear from 
the page of history. A night of ignorance, priestly 
tyranny, superstition and social disorder, a night whose 
gross darkness was hardly equalled hy any that had pre- 
ceded it, settled down on England. But the followers of 
Wickliffe were not extinct, nor had the Book perished 
whence they drew their life. Driven from the higher 
classes, truth had taken refuge among the unnoticed poor, 
and in silence and obscurity was nurturing the influences, 
which were to ensure her triumph in the happier times to 
come. The light which Wickliffe had kindled, often 
smothered, then hidden from public view, but never for a 
moment extinguished, at length mingled its beams with 
the full day of the Reformation. 

But this ancient version has yet another claim on our 
regard. It furnished, for all time, the type and pattern 
of The English Bible. In the century and a half, dur- 
ing which it was the well-spring of the religious life of 
England — that long, dark day, when persecution kept the 
flock of Christ fast by the source of strength and conso- 
lation — its homely, child-like, expressive phraseology had 
become too deeply hallowed in the English mind as the 
medium of inspiration, ever again to be dissevered from it. 
A comparison with the subsequent versions which have found 
favor with the common people, will show them to be, in this 
respect, all offsprings of this parent-stock. Improved in 
many important particulars, so as to reflect with greater 
exactness the sense of the inspired originals, they are yet 
substantially, in form and manner, but reproductions of 
that in which our unlettered forefathers first read the reve- 



105 

lation of God. Nay, I think it will be the feeling of many 
readers, that, while they are thus superior in correctness 
and in adaptation to more cultivated periods ; yet, in 
graphic, nervous force, in a certain untamed vigor, and a 
raciness of flavor which belongs to the youth of language, 
the patriarchal version has never been quite equalled. It 
was, to use Lord Bacon's beautiful illustration of a kindred 
point, *' the first crush of the grape?'' "When, moreover, 
we remark how intelligible it remains to the present day, 
how much more near is its phraseology to our own lan- 
guage of common life than that even of Chaucer, we can 
hardly avoid the conclusion that it was this book, pre-emi- 
nently, which gave shape and fashion to our mother tongue, 
and by its continually increasing spread, gradually moulded 
into permanent uniformity the language of the people. 

Thus, in a threefold sense, did England's first Bible be- 
come the central point of English history. The tree which 
Wicklifi'e planted, has clasped with its ever-lengthening 
roots the life of five centuries. 

6* 



CHAPTER XL 



WICKLIFFE'S INFLUENCE ABROAD. 

But it was not in England alone that Wickliffe's influ- 
ence was felt, on the errors of the age. The religious inte- 
rests of Bohemia, lay near the heart of the enlightened 
and pious Queen Anne ; and under her auspices, the Re- 
former's writings had early been carried, in great numbers, 
into her native country. His opinions were received with 
favor by the reigning king and queen, became the subject of 
free discussion in the University of Prague, and spread wide- 
ly among the common people. In the year 1400, in accord- 
ance with his great principle, the Scriptures were trans- 
lated into Bohemian, making the second vernacular trans- 
lation of modern Europe.* In 1404, the celebrated John 
Huss became a convert to these views ; and from his ar- 
dent spirit the movement received an impulse, which, 
within twenty-five years after the death of Wickliffe, had 
moved all Bohemia with his sentiments, and threatened 

* This, though not noticed by Vaughan in his Life of Wickliffe, is one of 
the most interesting events connected with his labors and influence. 



wickliffe's influence abroad. 107 

an entire subversion of the Romish power. The impor- 
tance of these events can only be rightly estimated, by 
taking into the account the mental activity, and force of 
character, which distinguished the Bohemians as a people, 
and the high intelligence and liberality of the nobles. 
Prague was not only the most populous, wealthy, and 
splendid city in Germany, but the acknowledged centre 
of the arts and sciences. Defection from the Papacy, at 
this point, involved far more than the loss of Bohemia. 
A light kindled on this eminence, must shine far and wide 
over the surrounding nations. 

In 1408, the Archbishop of Prague seized, and com- 
mitted to the flames, some two hundred volumes of the 
English Reformer's writings. These belonged mostly to 
members of the University, and were, of course, but a 
small part of the number in the country.* In 1409, Pope 
Alexander V. issued a bull to the government of Bohe- 
mia, requiring the suppression, by the most stringent 
methods, of all teaching of Wickliffe's doctrines. His 
successor, John XXIII., cited Huss to appear before him 
at Rome; and this being declined, excommunicated him, 
and laid the city of Prague under an interdict. 

At this crisis, Jerome of Prague, came forward to de- 
fend the persecuted reformer, and to sustain the cause for 
which he suffered. Jerome had studied at Oxford, where, 
probably, he first imbibed Wickliffe's sentiments ; and in 
Paris, he became known as their advocate, in a public con- 
troversy with the celebrated Romish theologian, Gerson. 
On his return to Bohemia, he was imprisoned in Vienna, 
as a favorer of Wickliffe's doctrines ; but was released at 
the intercession of the University of Prague, where he was 

* Vaughan. 



108 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

held in the highest esteem for his genius and learning. — 
He now stood forth boldly, as the leader in the conflict, 
and took even higher ground against the doctrines and 
government of the Papal church than Huss himself. Op- 
position only fanned the rising flame ; and the continual 
conflict of opinion led all classes, more and more, to a 
study of the Holy Scriptures, as the only reliable standard 
of truth. 

Things were in this condition, when the famous Council 
of Constance was assembled, in the city from which it takes 
its name. Its object was, in part, the termination of the 
scandalous quarrel of the three rival Popes, which was fast 
undermining the credit of St. Peter's chair ; in part, the 
suppression, by some adequate measures, of the alarming 
growth of Wicklifi'e's sentiments in Christendom. This 
Council was one of the most imposing ever convoked by 
the Romish church. It numbered among its members 
and attendants, a German Emperor, twenty princes, one 
hundred and forty counts, a pope, more than twenty car- 
dinals, seven patriarchs, twenty archbishops, ninety-one 
bishops, six hundred other prelates, and about four thou- 
sand priests. Its deliberations extended from the year 
1414 to 1418. 

The acts by which this great assembly are chiefly known 
to posterity, are the deposition of three infallible popes, 
followed by the election of a fourth; the burning of 
John Huss and Jerome at the stake, and the decrees 
against the writings of Wickliffe. Huss had been decoyed 
to Constance, by the promise of being allowed to defend 
his opinions before the assembled clergy of Christendom ; 
but, in violation of a safe-conduct from the hand of the 
Emperor Sigismund, he was put to death, in July, 1415. 



wickliffe's influence abroad. 109 

Jerome having ventured into the vicinity, in hope of aid- 
ing his beloved and revered brother, was likewise seized, 
and after a long imprisonment, followed him to the stake. 
But the truth had taken too deep root in Bohemia, to 
perish by such means. The assembled dignitaries of the Eo- 
mish church had beheld, with amazement, Bohemian nobles 
and citizens reasoning before them, with no less learning 
than boldness, from the word of God. A cause thus advo- 
cated, has ceased to depend on leaders. 

John Wickliffe had the honor of being recognized, by 
this august assembly, as the source of all the influences 
which had thus turned the world upside down. Among 
its earliest acts, fifty-five articles from his writings, which 
had already been condemned in England, Rome, and 
Prague, now received the solemn ban of the Council ; 
and subsequently, it is said, two hundred and sixty 
more were condemned in like manner. His works of 
every kind, and wherever found, were adjudged to the 
flames. 

Not satisfied with these measures, the Council, before 
closing, passed a sentence on his dead body, directing that 
it should be disinterred, and burnt to ashes, as an expres- 
sion of the abhorrence in which his doctrines and his mem- 
ory were held by Holy Church. The decree was executed 
in 1428, when Archbishop Chichely, Primate of England, 
himself went down to Lutterworth, attended by a large 
train of the English clergy, to superintend the ceremony. 
From beneath the humble chancel, where they had slept 
in peace more than forty years, the bones of the Reformer 
were dragged rudely forth to the light of day ; and being 
carried down the hill on which the church stood, to a little 



110 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

stream called the Swift, were there consumed by fire, and 
the ashes thrown into the river. 

The enemies of truth took this as a presage of the 
speedy and final destruction of Wickliffe's influence. But 
they were false seers. " The Swift," says quaint old 
Fuller, " conveyed his ashes into the Avon, Avon into the 
Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they to the main 
ocean. And thus they are the emblem of his doctrine, which 
now is dispersed all the world over." In Bohemia, the 
progress of his opinions was only accelerated by the cruel 
and treacherous dealing of the Council ; and during the 
entire fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, this favored country 
exhibited a shining example of the power of Bible Chris- 
tianity, to call forth the energies, as well as to exalt the 
morals of a nation. Fourteen translations of the whole 
Bible, besides ten of the New Testament, which have come 
down to this day, bear witness to the zeal of her Christian 
scholars. She had her printed Bible fifty years before 
England. Education was common to her whole popula- 
tion, and the arts and sciences were brought to a remark- 
able perfection. When in 1620, during the progress of the 
thirty years' war, Bohemia lost her nationality, three-fourths 
of her population were Protestant ; and seventy thousand 
men, with nearly the whole nobility, the entire body of the 
Protestant clergy, scholars, and artists, and in general, the 
most cultivated part of the nation, went forth as voluntary 
exiles, preferring rather to renounce their country thau 



f 



their religion. The monks from Spain, Italy, and South- i 



ern Germany, who poured into the subjugated country, ? 

found it a toilsome labor to restore the ancient reign of f 

darkness. Every Bohemian book was condemned as pre- I 
sumptivcly heretical. There were individuals who boasted 



} 



Ill 

of having burnt sixty thousand manuscripts, the precious 
relics of her early popular and sacred literature. Such 
works as were saved from the flames, were shut up in mo- 
nasteries, in secure rooms guarded by iron grates, doors, 
locks, bolts, and chains, and often inscribed with the warn- 
ing title, Hell, A clearer exemplification of the influence 
and aim of the two religions, could hardly be found in his- 
tory. 

It is easy to see what must have been the influence of 
this people, during their long period of prosperity, and 
how essentially it must have contributed towards prepar- 
ing the way for the great work of the sixteenth century. 
The reformation of Huss flowed into that of Luther ; and 
when the latter reached England, its waters mingled with 
that earlier stream, whose sources we have traced in the 
personal labors of Wickliffe. 

The mind stands amazed over the view thus opened, of 
the mighty consequeuces to mankind, flowing from the life 
of a single individual. If any thing could surprise us 
more, it would be that party spirit could have caused such 
services to humanity to be forgotten, and the very exist- 
ence of the apostle of modern Christianity, to become almost 
a myth in the land of his birth. But as certainly as truth 
is to triumph, and the last vestige of priestcraft to disap- 
pear before the light of the pure word of God, the name 
of John Wicklifi'e will brighten as the ages pass, and the 
beautiful eulogy of the martyrologist be accepted as no more 
than justice to his character and labors : " This is out of 
all doubt, that at what time all the world was in most des- 
perate and vile estate, and that the lamentable ignorance 
and darkness of God's truth had overshadowed the whole 
earth, this man stepped out like a valiant champion ; unto 



112 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

whom may justly be applied, that is spoken in the book of 
Ecclesiasticus, of one Simon, the son of Onias : * Even as 
the morning star being in the midst of a cloud, and as the 
moon being full in her course, and as the bright beams of 
the sun, so doth he shine and glister in the temple and 
church of God.' » 



%^t of §iHe Sraitslation in feglanb. 



i 







TYITBA1LE 



CHAPTER 1. 



RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF ENGLAND. 

A CENTURY and a half bad now elapsed since Wiekliffe 
gave England her first Bible. During this whole period, 
the Church, backed by the State, had made it a steady aim 
to root out the tendencies which he had implanted in the 
common English mind. Yet, at the beginning of the six- 
teenth century, we find them still existing in all their liv- 
ing energy among the Lollards. The " voluntary system " 
had proved adequate to the perpetuation of an order of 
devoted, working ministers, ^^ willing to endure all things 
for the eleco's sake;" men, who from pure love for souls, 
made a joyful sacrifice of worldly gain and ease, and went 
forth, at the hazard of their lives, to preach the Gospel to 
the poor. Many shires of England were acquainted with 
the toil-worn, weather-beaten forms of these humble apos- 
tles of Bible piety ; and about the time of Henry VIII's 
accession, numerous little congregations of '^ Brethren in 
Christ^'' (so they called themselves,) were existing in dif- 
ferent parts of the kingdom as the fruit of their labors. — 



116 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Being almost wholly from the lower classes, and taught by 
former persecutions to observe the greatest caution and 
secrecy, the timid flock had grown and multiplied unde- 
tected by their powerful foes. 

At this period, they seem to have enjoyed a fresh access 
of spiritual life. Thomas Mann, one of their preachers, 
who died for heresy in 1518, is reported in the bishop's 
record of his trial as " confessing that he hath turned seven 
hundred people to his religion; for which he thanketh Grod.'^ 
Such was their increase in zeal and numbers, that they 
could no longer escape observation. They were tracked to 
the lonely, unfrequented spots where they met under cover 
of night to worship God ; neighbor was made spy on neigh- 
bor ; husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers 
and sisters, were beguiled or forced to bear witness against 
each other. The Lollards Tower again echoed with the 
clanking of chains ; the rack and the stake once more 
claimed their victims. But those dark days of tears and 
blood have left a precious memorial for after times, fur- 
nished by the very hands which were striving to blot ^ this 
pestilent sect' from the face of the earth. From the regis- 
ters of the bishops, before whom those accused of heresy 
were tried, has been gathered a long list of lowly martyrs 
and confessors who, but for these cruel persecutors, would 
never have been heard of out of the plebeian sphere in 
which they were born. Nor do we need any better testi- 
mony than is furnished by these records, to the purity both 
of their doctrines and their lives. A simple, blameless 
people, full of love and good works, there was nothing to 
be found against them " save in the matter of the law of 
their God." 

What strikes one with most surprise, in these humble 



RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF ENGLAND. 117 

Christians, is the identity of their views at once with those 
of Wickliffe and his immediate followers, and with those 
afterwards known as the distinguishing traits of Protestant- 
ism. But the solution is easy. It was because they all 
drew from one and the same source, the inspired word 
OF God. Through their whole history, the living preacher 
and the written Scripture had gone hand in hand. There 
is abundant evidence, not only that Wickliffe's version was 
still preserved among them, but that they had numerous 
copies of it in whole or in part, which were diligently read 
by the families of common laborers and mechanics. 

One of the most common charges against the Lollards 
of this period, was the possession of some portion of Wick- 
liffe's Bible, and the ability to read it, or to repeat from 
it by heart. Among those ^'troubled" as suspected heretics, 
between the years 1509 and 1517, five persons were charged 
with having met together secretly to read " certain chapters 
of the Evangelists in English, containing in them," — such 
was the sentence of the learned Bishops — ^^ divers erron- 
eous and damnable opinions and conclusions of heresy,'^'* 
One Christopher Shoemaker, burnt at Newbury, was ac- 
cused of having gone to the house of John Say, and " read 
to him out of a book, the words which Christ spake to his 
disciples." In 1519, seven martyrs were burned in one 
fire at Coventry, '^ for having taught their children and 
servants the Lord's prayer and Ten Commandments in 
English." The register of Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, 
for the single year 1521, contains a list of some hundred 
names^ most of whom were accused for reading or repeat- 
ing portions of the Scriptures in the English language. 
Jenkin Butler accused his own brother of reading to him 
a certain book of Scripture, and persuading him to hearken 



118 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

to the same. John Barrett, goldsmith of London, was 

* troubled ' for having recited to his wife and maid the 
Epistle of James without book. John Thatcher was ac- 
cused of teaching Alice Brown this saying of Jesus : — 

* Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.' 
Thomas Philip and Lawrence Taylor were cited for read- 
ing the Epistle to the Romans and the first chapter of 
Luke in English. " Cuthbert, Bishop of London, sitting 
judicially in the chapel within his palace, at London, min- 
istered in word against John Pykas," who confessed ^ that 
about five years last past, at a certain time, his mother, 
then dwelling at Bury, sent for him, and moved him that 
he should not believe in the sacraments of the church, for 
that was not the right way. And then she delivered to 
him one book of Paul's Epistles in English, (manuscript) ; 
and bid him live after the manner and way of said Epis- 
tles and Gospels, and not after the way the church doth 
teach.' John Tyball was accused before this same bishop, 
of having had ' certain of Paul's Epistles after the old 
translation.' In 1529, John Tukesbury, a respectable 
citizen and leather merchant, of the city of London, con- 
fessed to having in his possession ^ a manuscript copy of 
the Bible, and that he had been studying in the Holy 
Scriptures from the year 1512.' 

Their supply of Bibles was indeed scanty, compared with 
that enjoyed since the introduction of the press ; but the 
lack was made up by an earnestness which could overcome 
all obstacles. We must not judge of these awakened minds 
and hearts, by the general standard of their class at the 
time. Was only a single copy owned in a neighborhood, 
these hard-working laborers and mechanics would be found 
together, after a weary day of toil, alternately reading and 



RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF ENGLAND. 1 19 

listening to the words of life ; and so sweet was the re- 
freshment to their spirits, that sometimes the morning 
light surprised them with its call to a new day of labor, ere 
they had thought of sleep. Their highest aim was to be- 
come possessors of some portion of the sacred volume. One 
man among them is mentioned, as having given a load of 
hay for a few chapters of one of Paul's Epistles. Some 
devoted the savings of years to this object. They have 
even been known to give a sum equal to eight or ten. 
pounds of our time, for one of those little tracts which 
"Wickliffe wrote so long before, for the instruction and 
comfort of the pious poor. 

But they were not merely superior to their class. In 
the intelligence of their belief, in their sense of the true 
worth and destiny of man, in their thirst for knowledge, as 
well as in purity of manners and ardor of piety, they were, 
as a body, in advance of the highest ranks both of clergy 
and laity. " To see," says their faithful and affectionate 
historian. Fox, ^ their travails, their earnest seeking, their 
ardent zeal, their reading, their washing, their sweet as- 
semblies, their love and concord, their godly living, their 
faithful marrying with the faithful, may make us now, in 
these our days of free profession, to blush for shame." 
That many, who bore the name of Lollards, failed in the 
hour of fiery trial and abjured their faith, merely proves 
that the influence of their views extended far beyond the 
bounds of the true believers. As a people, they were the 
recognized advocates, in a period of unsurpassed darkness 
and slavery to priestcraft, of the freedom of the human 
mind, of the rights of conscience, and of the supreme authori- 
ty of the Holy Scriptures. To their influence is doubtless 
to be assigned the first place, among the causes which led 
to the English Reformation. 



120 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Turn we now for a moment to the preparation going on 
in other classes, for the new epoch which was soon to dawn. 

In all her external relations, England was still the most 
obedient vassal of Rome. Henry VIII., by training a 
bigoted adherent of the church, vied with the " most Chris- 
tian monarchs " of former times, in humbling his kingdom 
before the papal footstool. A golden rose, touched by 
the apostolic finger with holy chrism, was, in his esteem, 
a full equivalent for the rich English benefices, which his 
Holiness disposed of unquestioned among his insatiable 
Italians. At no time had the clergy, as a body, been more 
ignorant, more corrupt, or more powerful, or the great mass 
of the people more abject slaves of superstition. 

Still the new day, which had dawned on continental Europe, 
could not be wholly shut out. Even before Luther had 
commenced his reformatory labors, a more liberal style of 
learning had been introduced into the English Universities, 
through the labors of Erasmus and a few native scholars 
of like spirit. Greek professorships had been established, 
the New Testament ia the original was studied by a con- 
siderable number, and public lectures were read on some 
portions of it. Hebrew, also, received some attention. 
These innovations were received by the great body of the 
clergy with anything but favor. With the quick instinct 
of birds of night, they discerned, far ofi", the hated approach 
of day. Dr. John Collet, who nobly led the way in the 
new path, by his lectures on Paul's Epistles (delivered at Ox- 
ford so early as 1497, *' without fee or reward,'') was in- 
terrupted by a prosecution for heresy, instituted by the 
Bishop of London, and escaped only through the personal 
kindness of Archbishop Warham, who dismissed the case 
without trial. When, in 1516, the Greek Testament of 
Erasmus made its appearance, a terrible hue and cry arose 



RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF ENGLAND. 121 

among the clergy. Priests used their influence at the con- 
fessional to warn young students against it * and one col- 
lege at Cambridge was found so conservative as to forbid 
the dangerous book to be brought within its walls. Stan- 
dish, afterwards Bishop of Asaph,* conjured the king, on 
bis knees, to put down Erasmus. The monks made them- 
selves especially conspicuous by the zeal of their opposition, 
declaring from the pulpit that " there was now a new lan- 
guage invented, called Greek, of which people should 
beware as the source of all heresies ; that in this language 
had come forth a book, called the New Testament, which 
was now in everybody's hands, and was full of thorns and 
briars ; that there was also another language started up 
which they called Hebrew, and that they who learned it 
were turned Jews." 

*' Eemember ye not," says Tyndale in 1531, *' how 
within this thirty years, and far less, and yet dureth to 
this day, the old barking curs, Dun's disciples, and the 
like draff, called Scottists, the children of darkness, raged 
in every pulpit against Greek, Latin, and Hebrew ; and 
what sorrow the schoolmasters that taught the true Latiu 
tongue, had with them ? Some beating the pulpit with 
their fists for madness, and roaring out with open and 
foaming mouth, that if there were but one Terence and 
Virgil in the world, and that same in their sleeves, and a 
fire before them, they would burn them therein, though it 
should cost their lives." 

But the spirit of the age was too strong to be thus 
repressed. Henry VIII. was himself ambitious to be 
known as a scholar and patron of learning ; and he not 

* Abbreviated, Ep. a St. As. (Episcopus a Sancto Asino^ as put by 
Erasmus in his Epistles ) 



122 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

only encouraged classical study, but, in 1519, commanded 
by a royal mandate, that the study of the Scriptures in 
the original languages, should henceforth constitute a regu- 
lar branch of academic instruction at Oxford. His minis- 
ter. Cardinal Wolsey, whose far-sighted intellect perceived 
in the new agencies at work in the age, a power which might 
perhaps be controlled, but could never be destroyed, 
threw himself into the vanguard of the cause of liberal 
learning. Cardinal's College, established by him at Oxford, 
was a magnificent project for converting progress itself into 
a barrier against progress ; for raising up a clergy quali- 
fied by rigid intellectual discipline and eminent scholar- 
ship, to snatch from the reformers the leadership of the 
awakening age. That college, he resolved, should be '^ the 
most glorious in the universe." To furnish it with adequate 
endowments, he ejected, by his authority as Papal Legate, 
the inmates of forty-one priories and nunneries, and devoted 
their riches to this object, sending forth their inmates to seek 
a home in other establishments. The most distinguished 
teachers were called in to add lustre to the new foundation, 
and its Fellows were the picked men of both universities. 
It was wisely planned. But the Cardinal, with all his 
sagacity, had not taken into the reckoning, that the men 
thus trained might be the first to desert the cause he 
sought to uphold. Cardinal's College rose into sudden 
eminence as a school of liberal learning, and in the same 
proportion became a nursery of the new opinions. Its 
accomplished youth, their minds emancipated by enlarged 
enquiry, and their hearts instructed by the Scriptures in 
that liberty wherewith Christ makes free, devoted them- 
selves with generous ardor to the cause of truth and 
spiritual freedom. 



RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF ENGLAND. 123 

Meanwhile, the inultiplication of books through the 
press, by promoting general intelligence, had increased the 
disaffection of all classes towards the Romish clergy. 
Voices were heard to and from the people, in numerous 
little treatises, exposing the errors and vices of the church. 
The thunder of Luther's tones then came reverberating 
over the water ; and, in spite of the vigilance of the clergy, 
translations of his writings were extensively circulated in 
England. 

Thus, long before the passions of Henry led to an exter- 
nal separation from Rome, the way had been preparing for 
a reform far more thorough and comprehensive ; a reform 
based on radical changes in the opinions and convictions 
of his subjects. To that true reform, he was no less an 
enemy than the Pope himself; and it worked its way 
against the whole force of his iron will. Its first marked 
development, the event which inaugurated the Age of 
Bible Translation in England, will form the subject of 
the next chapter. 



CHAPTER II. 



TYNDALE'S NEW TESTAMENT. 

After the. view just given of the influences at work in 
England, it can be no matter of surprise, to find the design 
of a new translation of the Scriptures already ripened in 
the bosom of an English scholar, years before Luther be- 
gan the publication of the Bible in German. That scholar 
was William Tyndale. 

Tyndale was born about the year 1484, and at a very 
early age was sent to Oxford, which was one of the most 
celebrated schools of learning then existing. Here he soon 
attained high rank, and was particularly distinguished for 
his knowledge of the tongues. But though a proficient in 
classical literature, his most diligent study was given to 
the Greek New Testament, in which, also, he was accus- 
tomed to read to his fellow students. There is even strong 
reason for believing that, while still at the University and 
before he had reached his twentieth year, the purpose of 
translating the Scriptures was already working in his mind. 
An autograph collection in the hands of one of his biogra- 



tyndale's new- testament. 125 

phers,* of translations made by him of select portions of 
the New Testament, shows in its ornamental, missal-like 
captions and borders, the initials W. T., and the date 
1502, several times repeated. To the latter are prefixed, 
in one instance, the significant words "Time Trieth;" as 
if the youthful translator even then had it in view, to sub- 
mit his labors to the test of publication. It is a fact no 
less remarkable than interesting, that these early attempts 
were transferred, for the most part verbatim, into his com- 
plete New Testament ; and that many passages have come 
down, through the successive revisions, unaltered into our 
common version ! Thus the bent of his mind, from its 
first known development, marks him out as a man of earnest 
purpose, who already comprehends what is his work and 
calling in the age. 

Still, however, he was a member of the Eomish church, 
and had probably thought of nothing beyond a reformation 
in the existing ecclesiastical institutions. In 1502, the 
date already mentioned, he was ordained a priest, and in 
1508, became a friar in the monastery at Grreenwich. 
We are not informed of the circumstances which induced 
him to withdraw from this relation ; but in 1522 he had 
returned to his native Gloucestershire, and was filling the 
of&ce of private tutor and chaplain in a family of rank. 
While here, he made no secret of his reformatory senti- 
ments, which soon became well known in the surrounding 
region. The hospitable mansion of his patron was a 
favorite resort of the prelates and clergy of the neighbor- 
hood, and frequent discussions arose at table in respect to 
the doctrines and measures of Luther, which were now 
making much noise in England. The dogmatism and de- 

*Offor's Memoir prefixed to Tyndale's New Testament, London, 1836. 



126 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

plorable ignorance, exhibited by the clerical visitors on these 
occasions, often drew from the modest tutor a spirited 
defence of the Eeformer, and an earnest recommendation 
to test his views by the New Testament. ^' He spared not," 
says Foxe, "to show them simply and plainly his judg- 
ment; and when they at any time did vary from his 
opinions, he luould show them i?i the book^ and lay before 
them the manifest places of Scripture^ to confute their 
errors and confirm his sayings." In these controversies 
the dignitaries were so uniformly mortified by defeat, that 
they gradually ceased their visits; "preferring," as Fuller 
remarks, " the loss of Squire Welch's good cheer, to the 
sour sauce of Master Tyndale's company." 

But if they could not reason, they could persecute ; and 
their ill will soon exhibited itself in the citation of Tyndale 
before the chancellor of the diocese, on a charge of heresy. 
There was quite a rally of the clergy to witness his humi- 
liation. In his own words, — "' All the priests of the 
country were present the same day." But under some in- 
fluence not now apparent, the Chancellor, after " threaten- 
ing him grievously, and reviling and rating him as though 
he had been a dog," allowed him to depart without pun- 
ishment. Some of his friends counselled a prudent con- 
cealment of his views in future ; but " the fire in his bones " 
refused to be shut up. A Popish clergyman soon after 
remarked to Tyndale, in reply to an earnest plea for a ver- 
nacular Bible : " We had better be without God's laws 
than the Pope's ! " " I defy the Pope and all his laws," 
cried the indignant Reformer ; " and if God spare 
my life^ ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth 
the plough to know more of the Scriptures than you do P'* 
A pledge which he nobly redeemed at the price of exile, 



127 

poverty, a life of toil and persecution, and finally of a 
martyr's death. 

It is iuteresting to remark how firmly, at this period, 
the thought had fixed itself in Tvndale's mind, that the 
translation of the Scriptures out of the original tongues, 
was emphatically the work demanded by the wants of the 
age. He thus explains the motives which moved him to 
put his hand to the task. 

" K thousand books had they lever to be put forth 
against their abominable doings and doctrines, than that 
the Scripture should come to light. For as long as they 
may keep that down, they will so darken the right way 
with their mist of sophistry, and so tangle them that 
either rebuke or despise their abominations, with arguments 
of philosophy, and with worldly similitudes, and apparent 
reasons of natural wisdom ; and with wresting the Scrip- 
tures unto their own purpose, clean contrary unto the pro- 
cess, order and meaning of the text ; and so delude them 
in descanting upon it with allegories ; and amaze them, 
expounding it in many senses before the unlearned lay 
people, (when it hath but one plain literal sense, whose 
light the owls cannot abide,) that though thou feel in thine 
heart, and art sure, how that all is false that they say, yet 
couldst thou not solve their subtle riddles. 

" "Which thing only moved me to translate the New Tes- 
tament. Because I perceived by experience, how that it 
was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth, 
except the Scriptures were plainly laid before their eyes in 
their mother tongue?'' 

Convinced that the prosecution of his design was im- 
practicable where he then was, and fearing, moreover, to 
jeopardize the family of his kind patrons, by remaining 



128 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

under their roof, Tyndale now resolved to seek another 
home. The plan he formed in this exigency, strikingly 
illustrates his simplicity of character, and his ignorance 
of the state of things in ^' high places." The opposition 
from which he had suffered, he ascribed to the peculiar 
ignorance and stupidity of the Gloucestershire clergy. 

" When," says he, " I was so turmoiled in the country 

where I was, that I could no longer dwell there, I 

thiswise thought in myself: this I suffer, because the 
priests of the country be unlearned, as God knoweth they 
are a full ignorant sort, which have seen no more Latin 
than they read in their Portesses, and Missals, which yet 
many of them can scarcely read. And therefore, because 
they are thus unlearned, thought I, when they come toge- 
ther to the ale-house, which is their preaching place, they 
afl&rm that my sayings are heresy." 

From the enlightened clergy of the metropolis, he ex- 
pected very different treatment. He fixed his eyes on 
Tunstal, Bishop of London, whom Erasmus, in his Anno- 
tations on the New Testament, had proclaimed a paragon 
of learniog and liberality, as the man under whose counte- 
nance he was to execute, in safety and quiet, and with all 
such aids as he might need, the beneficent task of giving 
the Bible to England. " I thought," says he, *^ if I might 
come into this man's service, I were happy. For even in 
the Bishop of London's house, I intended to have done it." 

Bidding farewell to his pleasant home in Little Sodbury 
Manor, Tjndale now turned his steps towards London, pro- 
vided with a letter from his patron to Sir Harry Guild- 
ford, the King's Comptroller. The story of his disap- 
pointment must be given in his own words : 

"And so," he says, ** I gat me to London, and through 



tyndale's new-testament. 129 

the acquaintance of my master, came to Sir Harry Guild- 
ford, the King's Grace's Comptroller, and brought him an 
oration of Isocrates, which I had translated out of Greek 
into English, to speak unto my Lord of London for me. 
This he also did, as he showed me, and willed me to write 
an epistle to my lord, and to go to him myself, which I 
also did, and delivered my epistle to a servant of his own, 
one William Hebilthwayte, a man of mine old acquain- 
tance. But God, which knoweth that which is within 
hypocrites, saw that I was beguiled, and that that counsel 
was not the next way to my purpose. And therefore 
he gat me no favor in my lord's sight. Whereupon my lord 
answered me — ' his house was full, he had more than he 
could well find, and advised me to seek in London, where,' 
he said, ^ I could not lack a service.' " 

The historical novelist might go far, without finding 
richer materials for character-painting, than are furnished 
by this little narrative. The guileless country scholar, 
his head teeming with classical and sacred lore, and his 
heart burning with a great thought of beneficence to his 
country — with his letter from the country baronet, and his 
oration of Isocrates for credentials — and the proud, world- 
ly church dignitary, whose friendship and protection he 
came to solicit, would make an exquisite contrast. To the 
Bishop of London, the poor, unknown clerk is a very 
different personage from the celebrated Erasmus, the pro- 
tege of popes and princes ; and Tyndale is shown out of 
the stately episcopal palace, with the kind advice to seek 
his fortune elsewhere. ** Truly," thus muses the disap- 
pointed scholar, " it was all in the tongue of Erasmus, 
which maketh of little gnats great elephants, and lifteth up 
above the stars whoever giveth him a little exhibition !" — 



130 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

There came a time, and not long after, when Bishop 
Tunstal found this same William Tyndale a man of far 
more account, so far as the interests of the Romish hier- 
archy were concerned, than the great Erasmus. 

Nearly a year was consumed in vain efforts to secure a 
situation favorable to the accomplishment of his design. 
Evidently, there was something in his deportment and 
conversation, which did not commend him to the church 
dignitaries of the capital. The last six months, he found 
a home in the hospitable abode of Humphrey Monmouth, 
a wealthy citizen, afterwards an Alderman of London. 
It was, however, far from being an idle or unprofitable 
year.. He preached, it would seem, regularly at St. Dun- 
stan's church. Fleet-street, on the Sabbath, and was as 
indefatigable a student as ever. But the most valuable 
lessons of the year were obtained from the study, for 
which the metropolis furnished such rich advantages, of 
the working of the existing church system, its influence on 
the character of the clergy, and through them, upon the 
moral condition of the kingdom, and the general interests 
of Christendom. He now saw that a plan for enlightening 
the people, like that which he had formed, was in contra- 
vention of the first principle of their policy, that the power 
of the clergy rests on the ignorance of the masses. Be- 
fore the close of the year, he had relinquished all idea of 
attempting its execution in England. 

** And so," he says, '' I abode in London almost a year, 
and marked the course of the world, and heard our preach- 
ers, how they boasted themselves and their high authority ; 
and beheld the pomp of our Prelates, and how busy they 
were, as they yet use, to set peace and unity in the world ; 
though it be not possible for them that walk in darkness, to 



TYNDALE'S NEW-TESTAxMENT. 131 

continue long m peace, (for they cannot but either stumble, 
or dash themselves at one thing or another, that shall clean 
disquiet them altogether,) and saw things of which I defer 
to speak at this time ; and understood at the last, not 
only that there was no room in my Lord of London's palace 
to translate the New Testament, but also that there was 
no place to do it in all England, as experience doth now 
openly declare." 

Accordingly, late in the year 1523,* being furnished by 
his noble friend, Monmouth, with the sum of ten pounds 
(equal to one hundred and fifty of the present time, or 
nearly seven hundred dollars), Tyndale bade a final adieu 
to his native land, and embarked for Hamburgh. In this 
city he remained between one and two years, diligently 
improving the quiet and securitv here afi'orded for the 
prosecution of his translation. 

Having nearly or quite completed it, he drew on Mon- 
mouth for an additional ten pounds, contributed by other 
English friends, which he had left with him for safe-keep- 
ing, and repaired to Cologne for the purpose of printing 
his manuscript at one of its celebrated presses. His 
arrangements were made with the greatest secrecy, for 
Cologne was far from being favorable to the sentiments of 
the Reformation. 

One interesting fact should not be omitted in this con- 
nection. The English merchants, residing for purposes of 
trade in the commercial cities of Germany, seem, as a 
general thing, to have been deeply imbued with Protestant 
principles. Many of them became the steady friends and 

* In the statement of dates and places, the authority of Anderson (Annals 
of the English Bible, London, 1845) is, for the most part, followed in this 
division of the work. 



132 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

protectors of Tyndale, and entered with warm zeal into 
his design of giving the Bible to their common country. 
They aided him with money ; their ships were at his ser- 
vice for the conveyance of his precious offering into Eng- 
land, concealed in boxes and bales of merchandise. Of 
like spirit must have been their partners in the English 
ports, to whom it was consigned. Thus we have a glimpse 
into a state of opinion and feeling, in a most influential 
class of English society, which might well excite the 
.utmost jealousy and vigilance on the part of the church- 
men. Such friends Tyndale found at Cologne ; and his 
work was passing through the press under happy auspices, 
when an exigency arose, beyond their power to meet, which 
drove Tyndale hastily from the city. 

THE BIBLE HATER. 

Just at this critical moment, when the salvation of Eng- 
land seemed to hang on the successful completion of the 
undertaking, there arrived in Cologne one of the most 
busy and malignant enemies of the truth, that the world 
has seen. The especial distinction of John Cochlaeus was 
his intense hatred to vernacular translations of the Bible, 
in which he is said to have surpassed all his contempo- 
raries. The rancor which characterized his numerous 
writings against the German Reformers, and his unceasing 
efforts, by word and deed, to counteract their influence, 
had so offended the Protestant feeling of Frankfort, where 
he formerly resided, that he was obliged to flee from that 
city. The same thing having been repeated at Mentz, he 
took refuge at Cologne at the very time when his presence 
was, seemingly, most disastrous to the cause of truth. Just 
then he was exceedingly anxious to bring out the works of 



133 

Kupert, an ancient abbot of Deutz, who was claimed by 
both parties in the great controversy ; but he found it 
difficult to convince any of the Cologne printers that the 
enterprise would pay. After many unsuccessful attempts, 
Peter Quintel, the very printer employed by Tyndale, was 
persuaded to make the trial ; and thus the best of oppor- 
tunities for ferreting out the important secret was fur- 
nished to the man, who, of all others, would be likely to 
make the worst use of it. 

For a person of his rank, and an ecclesiastic, Cochlaeus 
seems to have been on terms of very jovial fellowship with 
the printers. The manner in which he improved the inti- 
macy is most fitly related in his own words. 

*^ Having thus become more intimate and familiar with 
the Cologne printers, he sometimes heard them boast, con- 
fidently, when in their cups, that, whether the King and 
Cardinal of England would or not, all England would, in 
a short time, be Lutheran. He heard, also, that there 
were two Englishmen lurking there, learned, skillful in 
languages, and fluent, whom, however, he could never see 
or converse with. Calling, therefore, certain printers into 
his lodging, aftei' they loere heated with wine^ one of them 
in more private discourse, discovered to him the secret by 
which England was to be drawn over to the side of Luther, 
— namely, ' That three thousand copies of the Lutheran 
New Testament, translated into the English language, 
were in press, and already were advanced as far as the 
letter K, in or dine quaternionum. That the expenses 
were fully supplied by English merchants, who were 
secretly to convey the work when printed, and disperse it 
widely through all England, before the King or the Car- 
dinal would discover or prevent it/ " 



134 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Having considered with himself ^^ the magnitude of the 
grievous danger," Cochlasus repaired, next day, to the 
house of Hermann Rincke, a distinguished patrician of 
Cologne, who had held many high offices at court, was 
familiar both with the Emperor and with the King of Eng- 
land, and had great influence in the city government, and 
to him disclosed the whole affair. Herr Kincke was not the 
man to let slip an opportunity for laying a king under obli- 
gation. Accordingly, after satisfying himself by personal 
investigation at the printing house, that Cochlaeus was not 
mistaken, he laid the matter before the city Senate, and made 
such a representation of the case, that they issued an order 
interdicting the printer from proceeding farther in that work. 
Tyndale did not wait for the second blow. Hastily gather- 
ing up his manuscripts, and the sheets as far as printed, he 
fled with his assistant, George Roye, up the Rhine to Worms. 
This place, being fully pervaded by the doctrines of Luther, 
offered a far more secure retreat than Cologne, and here, 
accordingly, he remained till the year 1527 

Arrived at Worms, he was personally safe, and might 
hope to complete his work without interruption. But a 
new difficulty lay in his way. The New Testament which 
he had commenced printing was in quarto form, with ex- 
planatory notes and glosses, and a long Prologue at the 
beginning. All this had become known to his enemies, 
who would, of course, furnish such a description of the volume 
to the authorities in England, as would enable them to seize 
all copies the instant they arrived. Tyndale decided 
at once upon his course. Laying aside his quarto for the 
present, he had an edition of the text merely struck off in 
octavo form, in which, for the Prologue, he substituted an 
Epistle to the Reader, at the end, — thus effacing, so far as 



TYND ale's new-testament. 135 

possible, every feature by which the book might be iden- 
tified. This he probably intended should precede the 
quarto, by an interval sufficiently long to allow the alarm 
excited by Cochlaeus to die away. But, through some 
circumstances, now unknown, its transmission to England 
was delayed till the quarto also had been completed, and both 
editions arrived very nearly at the same time, towards the 
close of December, 1525. The labor was not, indeed, fruit- 
less ; for the little octavo had been quietly making its way 
through the country, nearly three quarters of a year before 
its existence was suspected. The quarto, on the contrary, 
was discovered scarcely a month after its arrival. The 
circumstances of its detection furnish a lively picture of 
the state of the times. 

THE SECRET SEARCH. 

In the year 1523, Symon Fyshe, a lawyer of Gray's Inn, 
London, having taken part in a privately acted play which 
reflected severely on Cardinal Wolsey, was that same night 
betrayed, and obliged to flee from his own house, and at 
length from England, While still in exile, probably in the 
year 1524, he composed a tract addressed ^ to the King 
our Sovereign Lord,' entitled ^ The Supplication of Beg- 
gars,' which set forth in a bold and spirited manner, 
the danger to the nation and the throne, from the grasp- 
ing avarice of the clergy. In this, he averred, was the 
true ground of their opposition to the Bible for the 
people. " This is the great scab loliy they will not let the 
New Testament go abroad in your mother -tongue^ lest 
men should espy that they, by their cloaked hypocrisy, do 
translate, thus fast, your kingdom into their hands." — 
Copies of this stirring appeal were soon secretly circulat- 



136 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

ing in England, and produced wherever read a deep im- 
pression. On Candlemas day, February 2, 1526, advan- 
tage was taken of a royal procession to Westminster, to 
scatter large numbers in the streets, thus distributing it 
far and wide, among all classes of people. 

How slight a cause will alarm the abettor of error ! The 
great Cardinal, clothed with almost regal and pontifical 
power, the man who had been truly called the ^ king of 
his king,' trembled at these few pages of a friendless, 
banished man. Tt was not without reason ; for they had 
in them the omnipotence of truth ! So imminent seemed 
to him the danger, that on the very next day, orders were 
issued by his authority for a " secret search?^ after Lu- 
theran books,* to be made simultaneously in London, and 
both the Universities. Three years before, a similar mea- 
sure had been resolved on, as a check to the progress of 
reform* and had then obtained the king's full concurrence. 
Without waiting for any farther expression of the royal 
will, Wolsey now proceeded to carry this act into instant 
execution. Such were the circumstances which led to the 
discovery, thus early, of the English New Testament. 

Suspicion having fastened particularly on one Thomas 
Garrett, Curate of All-Hallows Church, as a receiver and 
distributor of prohibited books, he was searched for through 
all London. It was found, however, that he had gone to Ox- 
ford, with a great quantity of such books, for the purpose 
of there making sale of them " to such as he knew to be 
lovers of the Gospel." Thither he was pursued, in the de- 

* Lutheran was now the term of reproach, as Lollardhud been during 
the preceding century. Under this name were included not only the 
translated works of the German Reformers, but all English books, both 
old and recent, which contained sentiments similar to theirs, Tyndale's 
original writings and his New Testament among the number. 



TYND ale's new TESTAMENT. 137 

termination, says Foxe, *'to apprehend and imprison him, 
and to burn all and every his foresaid books, and him- 
self too, if they could, so burning hot was their zeal." But 
having received a friendly warning of his danger, he fled 
on the morning of the 7th, and concealed himself. The 
impression of that day of terror is affectingly given in the 
words of Anthony Dalaber, one of the pious Oxford stu- 
dents, who was a devoted friend, and, soon after, a fellow- 
suflferer of Garrett. 

"When he was gone down from my chamber, I straight- 
ways did shut my chamber door, and went into my study, 
and took the New Testament in my hands, kneeled 
down on my knees, and with many a deep sigh and salt 
tear, I did with much deliberation read over the tenth 
chapter of Matthew's Gospel ; and when I had so done, 
with fervent prayers I did commit unto God our dearly 
beloved brother Garrett, earnestly beseeching him in and 
for Jesus Christ's sake, his only begotten Son, our Lord, 
that he would vouchsafe not only safely to conduct and 
keep our said dear brother from the hands of all his ene- 
mies, but also that he would endue his tender and lately 
born little flock in Oxford with heavenly strength by his 
Holy Spirit, that they might be able thereby valiantly to 
withstand, to his glory, all their fierce enemies, and might 
also quietly, to their own salvation, with all godly patience, 
bear Christ's heavy cross ; which I now saw was presently 
to be laid on their young and tender backs, unable to bear 
so great a burden without the great help of his Holy 
Spirit. This done, I laid aside my book safe." 

Many such scenes, no doubt, passed that night in soli- 
tary rooms at Oxford, when the English New Testament 
of Tyndale was consecrated to its holy, work by the tears 



138 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

and prayers of humble and trembling hearts. On tbe fol- 
lowing Friday, poor Garrett fell into the hands of his ene- 
mies. After being compelled, in company with Dalaber 
and several other convicted students, to march in procession 
from St. Mary's to Cardinal College, where each of them 
cast one of the condemned books into a large bonfire 
kindled for the purpose, the two friends were imprisoned 
at Osney Isle till near the close of the year, when Garrett 
was brought before Tunstal for the trial, which resulted 
in his martyrdom. 

But these were not the only victims at Oxford. Cardi- 
nal College, that darling of Wolsey's heart, was found to 
be deeply infected with the dreaded poison. The books 
detected under the flooring of its rooms and in other secret 
places, too plainly betrayed the humiliating fact. The 
Cardinal's anger was in proportion to his disappointment. 
Of the suspected, some escaped to their friends ; but ten 
or more members of this model college, with about an 
equal number from the others, were apprehended, and im- 
mured in a deep cellar under Cardinal College, used as a 
repository of salt fish. Three of them sunk wdthin a week 
under the efi'ects of a putrid atmosphere and unwholesome 
food, and a fourth soon followed. The rest, after lying 
from March to August in this loathsome dungeon, with 
nothing to subsist on but the fish with which it was stored, 
were made prisoners at large by Wolsey. He probably 
thought that by this time the lads were well cured of 
heresy. 

Among the number thus released was John Frith, then 
about twenty-two years of age, a young man of rare genius 
and acquirements, and of fervent piety. He soon escaped 
to the continent ; and having joined his spiritual father and 



139 

best beloved friend, Tyndale, became his assistant in trans- 
lating the Bible. 

We must now turn to the sister university. Cambridge 
lay under still stronger suspicion of heresy than Oxford, 
and with good reason. Here, several years before, Thomas 
Bilney had been converted by the study of Erasmus' Grreek 
Testament; and, through his labors, Hugh Latimer, and 
Robert Barnes, Prior of the Monastery of Augustine Friars 
at Cambridge, had also learned the way of life. From 
them, a powerful evangelical influence had spread into the 
various colleges of the university, so that even as early as 
1523 certain bishops had urged the importance of a visita- 
tion, for the purpose of trying those who were infected with 
heresy. Wolsey, who always resented the interference of 
inferior prelates in matters which he had taken under his 
special supervision, and who probably thought he could 
arrest the epidemic whenever he might please to speak the 
word, silenced the movement. Perhaps, moreover, he could 
not prevail on himself to extinguish, at once, the only 
light amid the stupid conservatism of Cambridge ; for the 
suspected parties were the sole promoters and examples 
of liberal learning in the university. Whatever were the 
cause, the truth was permitted to spread three years longer, 
Unobstructed by any authoritative interference. 

But a crisis gradually approached. Growing bolder and 
more earnest in the truth, Latimer openly inveighed against 
the crime of locking up the Scriptures from the people in 
an unknown tongue. Upon this he was cited for heresy 
before West, Bishop of Ely, and forbidden to preach either 
in the churches of the university, or anywhere within 
his diocese. But the monasteries were exempt from epis- 
copal jurisdiction, and Barnes opened his chapel to the 



140 THE ENGLISH 3IBLE. 

silenced preacher. Such were the crowds who rushed to 
hear him that the place could not contain them. Barnes 
himself was now invited by the parish of St. Edwards to 
preach in their church ; and, though constitutionally timid, 
and hitherto, it would seem, cautious in his policy, he now 
resolved to give free and full utterance to his convictions. 
The rising tide of popular favor, an influence to which he 
was very susceptible, may have caused something of human 
vanity and presumption to mingle with his better feelings ; 
for, not contenting himself with a clear exhibition of Chris- 
tian truth, he launched into a bold tirade, full of wit and 
sarcasm, against the worldly pomp and magnificence of the 
Lord Cardinal himself, then in the height and plenitude 
of power. A rebuke well merited, indeed, but which could 
hardly fail to lead to consequences for which, alas ! poor 
Barnes was but ill-prepared. This was on the 24th of 
December, 1525. A storm immediately arose in the uni- 
versity, one party siding most zealously with the preacher, 
as a champion of the faith, the other firmly resolved on his 
humiliation or his ruin. Public disputations on the con- 
tested points were kept up through the whole of January, 
and the first week of February, in which learned men from 
at least seven difierent colleges took part. Meanwhile a 
full account of the transaction had been sent to the 
Cardinal. 

Things were thus progressing at Cambridge, and Wol- 
sey's proud spirit had been stung to madness, by the report 
of Barnes' attack upon those peculiarly tender points in 
his character, when the distribution of Fyshe's tract, on 
the second of February, completed his chagrin and irrita- 
tion. The emissaries of the '^secret search^'' at Cambridge, 
had a double commission ; first, the apprehension of Dr 



141 

Barnes, and secondly, the seizure of heretical books, and 
of those in whose possession they were found. Of these, 
not fewer than thirty names were on their list, and the 
rooms of each had been exactly designated and described. 
But at the first instant of the officers' arrival, Dr. For- 
man, of Queen's College, himself an adherent of " the new 
learning," had given the warning word ; and by the time 
the Sergeant-at-arms, attended by the Vice-Chancellor and 
the Proctors, was ready to go the rounds, Cambridge was, to 
all appearance, purified of heresy. Not a '' seditious " book 
was to be found ; and the officer, with only Dr. Barnes in 
charge, returned to London, no wiser than he came. 

The next day after his apprehension, Barnes stood be- 
fore Wolsey, whose bitter taunts and hard demeanor be- 
trayed how deeply his pride had been wounded. ^^ What ! 
Master Doctor," he asked, " had you not scope enough in 
the Scriptures to teach the people, that my golden shoes, 
my pole-axes, my pillars, my golden cushions, my crosses 
did so ofi'end you, that you must make me ridiculum caput 
before the people ? We were jollily that day laughed to 
scorn. Verily, it was a sermon fitter to be preached on a 
stage than in a pulpit." Poor Barnes for a time held out 
bravely, alike against threats and persuasions. But when 
the final alternative was put to him — ^^ Abjure or burn'''' — 
his faith proved insufficient for the trial. Having, in 
great agony of mind, at length yielded to the demands of 
his judges, the next Sunday was appointed for the public 
expiation of his ofi-ence, at St. Paul's. On that day, the 
triumphant Cardinal, attired in purple, surrounded by six 
and thirty abbots, mitred priors and bishops, in damask 
and satin, sat enthroned in all his pomp — the highest 
representative of the Church of Eome in England — and 



142 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

beheld at his feet the leading champion of evangelical 
truth — an abjuring heretic ! Beside him stood — each like 
him with a faggot, the mark of shame, on his shoulder — 
five honorable merchants, convicted of the crime of aiding 
to bring the Bible into England. Within the rails were 
displayed the evidences of their guilt — ^'' great baskets full 
of books,^^ in part the New Testaments of Tyndale — the 
precious booty gathered by the previous week's " search" 
in Oxford and London. After a sermon against Luther 
and Barnes, by Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, these baskets 
were emptied into a large bonfire, kindled before the great 
crucifix at the north gate of St. Paul's, wherein, also, the 
heretics, after making three times the circuit of the fire, 
cast their faggots. Wolsey then retired under a canopy, 
in great pomp, and Fisher proclaimed to the assembly 
certain days of pardon and indulgence, for being present 
on this occasion ; though by his own statement, when he 
afterwards published his sermon, they had made such a 
tumult, as to drown his voice during its delivery. At the 
close of the ceremony, the unhappy Barnes, in accordance 
with the good faith and tenderness usually shown by the 
Romish Mother to those who have returned to her bosom, 
was sent back to prison. 

Such was the greeting which the New Testament received 
at the hands of the priesthood, on its first arrival in England, 
in the sixteenth century. It was just as they had treated 
Wicklifi'c's Bible a hundred and forty years before. The 
spirit of the Romish Church had remained unchanged. 

THE KING ENLISTED. 

Thus far, however, these measures had received no di- 
rect countenance from the King. In the ''secret search'' 



tyndale's new testament. 143 

just described, the Cardinal had acted simply on his own 
ecclesiastical authority. But a few weeks only had elapsed, 
when Luther's imprudence, and Henry's vanity, furnished 
the means of enlisting him as a persecutor, with a zeal no 
less violent than theirs. 

Henry VIII. 's book against Luther, by which he gained 
from the Pope the title in which he so much gloried — 
^' Defender of the Faith" — and Luther's uncourteous, not 
to say virulent reply, are matters familiar to my readers. 
In 1525, Luther — urged, as he afterwards professed, by 
Christian, King of Denmark — made a most blundering at- 
tempt at reconciliation with Henry, by a letter, in which 
he begged pardon for his former one, as foolish, precipitate, 
and offensive ; but, at the same time, explaining that he 
now understood the real author of the King's book to 
have been Wolsey, whom he denounced as '' a monster, the 
abhorrence of God and man, and the plague of the realm 
of England." It so happened, moreover, that the original 
letter never reached Henry, but only a printed copy, and 
that not till six months after its date, or about one month 
after the degradation of Barnes, and the burning of the 
New Testaments at St. Paul's. 

The wily Cardinal well knew how to turn Luther's /a^^a; 
pas to his own ends. Incensed beyond measure at the 
Reformer's depreciation of his precious book, and of his 
own claim to be its author, and justly angry that the letter 
should have been given to the public months before he saw 
it ; Henry was easily persuaded, that the New Testaments, 
secretly conveyed in such numbers into the country, were 
from the same source, being part and parcel of Luther's 
plot to turn all England to his heresy. The fact that the 
translator's name was withheld, gave color to the asser- 



144 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

tion. The King was now quite willing to aid in their 
suppression; and, accordingly, the first royal mani- 
festo in defence of the burning the English Bible, and the 
severe punishment of those who should read it, soon ap- 
peared. To his Latin reply to Luther, was prefixed an 
English address to his own subjects, in which, after an ac- 
count of Luther's unfortunate letter, and his '^device" of 
translating the New Testament into English, " with cor- 
ruptions in the holy text, as well as with certain prefaces 
and glosses, for the advancement and setting forth of his 
abominable heresies," he proceeds in the following paternal 
style : '' In the avoiding whereof. We, of our special tender 
zeal towards you, have, with the deliberate advice of the 
most reverent Father in Grod, Thomas Lord Cardinal, Le- 
gate a latere of the See Apostolic, Archbishop of York, 
Chancellor and our Primate of this realm, and other reve- 
rend fathers of the spirituality, determined the said and 
untrue translations to be burned, with further sharp cor- 
rection and punishment against the keepers and readers 
of the same, reckoning of your wisdom very sure, that ye 
will well and thankfully receive our tender and loving mind 
to you therein, and that ye will never be so greedy of any 
sweet wine, be the grape never so pleasant, that ye will 
desire to taste it, being well advertised, that your enemy 
before hath poisoned it." 

The King's dutiful subjects, however, were neither dis- 
posed to take bis word, or submit to his authority in this 
matter. The idea, so long nourished in the humble con- 
gregations of the Lollards, that no power in Church or 
State can lawfully shut up the word of God from the people, 
had now spread far and wide in England. While, therefore, 
unremitted inquisition was made for the sacred book, and 



tyndale's new testament. 145 

great numbers were discovered and destroyed, so that, we are 
informed, " during this year Bibles were burned daily ;" yet, 
so far did the demand and supply outstrip the activity of 
the clergy, that the country was filled with copies. Tun- 
stal, Bishop of London, who had been absent during this 
excitement, as Ambassador to Spain, returning in the au- 
^;umn, found his diocese plentifully sown, with both the 
\uarto and the octavo editions. On the 24th of October, 
^.he following decree was issued under his episcopal seal : 

" By the duty of our pastoral office, we are bound diligently, with all our 
^wer, to foresee, provide for, root out, and put away, all those things which 
'.eem to tend to the peril and danger of our subjects, and specially the de- 
^ruction of their souls ! Wherefore, we having understanding, by the report 
jf divers credible persons, and also by the evident appearance of the matter, 
that many children of iniquity, maintainers of Luther's sect, blinded through 
extreme wickedness, wandering from the way of truth and the Catholic 
faith, craftily have translated the New Testament into our English tongue, 
intermingling therewith many heretical articles^ and erroneous opinions, per- 
nicious and offensive, seducing the simple people, attempting, by their 
wicked and perverse interpretations, to profanate the majesty of Scripture, 
which hitherto hath remained undefiled, and craftily to abuse the most 
Holy Word of God, and the true sense of the same ; of the which translation, 
there are many books imprinted, some with glosses, and some without ; con- 
taining in the English tongue, that pestiferous and most pernicious poison, 
dispersed throughout all our diocese, in great number — which truly, without it 
be speedily foreseen, without doubt will contaminate and infect the flock 
committed unto us, with most deadly poison and heresy, to the grievous peril 
and danger of the souls committed to our charge, and the offence of God's 
Divine Majesty : Wherefore we, Cuthbert, the Bishop aforesaid, grievously 
sorro^ving for the premises, willing to withstand the craft and subtlety of 
the ancient enemy and his ministers, which seek the destruction of my flock, 
and with a diligent care to take heed unto the flock committed to my 
charge, desiring to find speedy remedies for the premises, Do charge you, 
jointly and severally, (the Archdeacons,) and by virtue of your obedience, 
straightly enjoin and command you, that, by our authority, you warn, or 
cause to be warned, all and singular, as well exempt as not exempt, dwell- 
ing within your archdeaconries, that within thirty days' space, whereof tea 

7 



146 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

days shall be for the jBrst, ten for the second, and ten for the third peremp- 
tory term, under pain of excommunication, and incurring the suspicion of 
heresy, they do bring in, and really deliver unto our Vicar-General, (Geof- 
frey Wharton,) all and singular such books, as contain the translation of the 
New Testament in the English tongue ; and that you do certify us, or our 
said Commissary, within two months after the day of the date of these pres- 
ents, duly, personally, or by your letters, together with these presents under 
your seals, what you have done in the premises, under pain of contempt 1 
Given under our seal, the four and twentienth day of October, a. d. 1526, 
in the fifth year of our consecration." 

The Archbishop of Canterbury had already called aa 
assembly of BishopS; to consult on the alarming state of 
his province ; and a few days after the publication of 
Tunstal's decree, an archiepiscopal '^ Mandate," couched in 
nearly the same terms, directed a search of the entire 
province, for the single object of seizing copies of the Eng- 
lish New Testament. 

Aware, however, that all this would avail little, so long 
as the offensive volume continued to pour in from abroad, 
they resolved on an energetic effort to cut off the source 
of supply. Such an eager craving for the Scriptures had 
been created among the English people, that a printer of 
Antwerp, Christopher Endhoven by name, had taken it up, 
as a profitable business investment ; and, without consult- 
ing Tyndale, had already brought out a third edition of his 
translation. This, with the former editions, was now com- 
ing into England, through members of the English House 
of Merchant Adventurers established in that great com- 
mercial emporium. 

The office of confidential Agent of the Crown to the 
Imperial City at this time (the King's Merchant, as he 
was called) was Sir John Hackett, who held also the high 
office of Envoy to the Court of Brabant, of which the Prin- 
cess Margaret, aunt of the Emperor Charles V., was then 



tyndale's new testament. 147 

Regent. Directly after the issuing of Tunstal's decree, 
Henry addressed a letter to the Princess, and another to 
the Governor of the English House, both of which had 
for their object the seizure and burning of English New 
Testaments found in that country, and the punishment, 
by banishment and confiscation, of all engaged in printing 
and circulating it. Chancellor Wolsey also wrote two 
letters to Hackett, to the same effect. The zeal and per- 
tinacity with which the Envoy pushed the matter, though, 
as appears from his own letters, highly offensive to the 
Lords of Antwerp, and not over-welcome to the Princess 
Margaret, shows the urgency of his directions from home. 
But there were laws in Antwerp ; and its citizens could 
not be touched, " in life or goods," for offences merely 
charged, and not proved against them, even though the 
accuser were a king. Some three or four hundred volumes 
were seized in various cities and burnt, and Endhoven was 
temporarily imprisoned. But he was neither banished nor 
his property confiscated ; and while Hackett was picking 
up a few hundred stray copies, thousands, as they all knew 
too well, were making their way towards England, or were 
already there. 

THE BISHOPS ON THE ALERT. 

Finding it out of the question to put a forcible stop to 
the circulation of the terrible book, — to them the book 
of doom, — the prelates now fell upon a new expedient. 
They resolved to clear the market by wholesale purchase 
from the printers and dealers ! This Warham, the Pri- 
mate of England, effected so far as it was possible, through 
Hackett the Envoy, at an expense to his archiepiscopal 



148 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

province, of about five thousand dollars of our money. 
This was in the spring of 1527. 

Tunstal, meanwhile, was equally busy in searching for 
copies already in the country, but not with the same suc- 
cess. He was just proceeding to more stringent measures 
in his diocese, which should utterly root out the obnoxious 
influence, when his appoinment, in conjunction with 
Wolsey and Sir Thomas More, to a political embassy to 
France, obliged him to leave the matter in charge with his 
Vicar. He, either through disinclination or fear, did 
nothing about it, and the persecution was stayed till his 
superior's return, in October. 

Wolsey came back from France with the new dignity of 
Vicar-general of the Pope through the King's dominions, 
that is, with authority to exercise all the functions of the 
Pope in England. Its ecclesiastical aff'airs were placed 
under his absolute control ; its clergy, from highest to 
lowest, became subject to him as their supreme Head. 
His entrance on the high office was signalized by a general 
council which met in obedience to his summons, at West- 
minster, in November. Having pompously announced that 
*^ now all the abusions of the church should be amended," 
he opened the court by an examination of two distinguished 
advocates of the truth, Arthur and Bilney, on the charge 
of heresy. After thus giving his countenance to the pro- 
ceeding, and by his arrogant and contemptuous bearing 
towards men infinitely better than himself, setting a worthy 
example to his bishops, he left the trial in their hands, 
being himself occupied with " the affairs of the realm." 

The sad result of the trial must be told. On the 2d of 
December, Arthur abjured, nor is he ever again heard from 
in the ranks of the faithful. On the 7th, Bilney, after 



149 

enduring for four days, every species of mental torture, 
from the threats, the persecutions, and sophistical casuistry 
of Tunstal, West, and Fisher, followed his example. The 
next day, his head bowed with shame, and his heart even 
then racked with remorse, he bore a faggot at St. Paul's, 
and was then remanded to prison during the Cardinal's 
pleasure. Being at length released, he returned to Cam- 
bridge in a state of agony, scarcely short of despair ; so 
that for some two years his friends dared not leave him 
alone, day or night. . " They comforted him," says Lati- 
mer, " as they could, but no comfort would serve. And 
as for the comfortable places of Scripture, to bring them 
to him, was as though a man should run him through the 
heart with a sword." But at length. He who forgave the 
denial of Peter, spoke peace to the troubled conscience of 
his servant, and filled his soul with more than its early joy 
in believing. Saying that he must ^^ go up to Jerusalem^'' 
he now took leave of his friends, and passing through the 
shires of Norfolk and Essex, he spent many weeks preach- 
ing the gospel from house to house, and distributing copies 
of Tyndale's New Testament. Being at length seized near 
London, the timid, but most loving and sincere disciple, re- 
ceived strength to confess his Master boldly before men, 
and went up to Heaven in the fiery chariot of martyrdom. 
Thus determined and thorough were the measures of 
the high powers in Church and State, for the suppression 
of the word of God. Boyal and priestly prohibitions, 
decrees, mandates, secret inquisition, foreign diplomacy 
and persecution, had all been tried in turn. And what had 
they effected ? So mightily grew and prevailed the de- 
mand for the Scriptures, that even while Endhoven lay in 
prison at Antwerp and the issue of his case was still 



150 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

doubtful, another Antwerp printer, if not indeed more 
than one, had judged the prospect of pecuniary profit worth 
the risk of embarking in the same enterprise. On the 23d 
of May, 1527, Hackett writes to Wolsey, that in spite 
of all his efforts, " some new printers of the town of Ant- 
werp were offering in the market divers English books, 
entitled ^The New Testament,'" and that he had heard of 
^' more than two thousand such like English books " having 
been offered for sale at the late Frankfort fair. Hundreds 
of these were already on English ground. One John 
Raimund, or Ruremonde, an Antwerp printer, was convicted 
of having caused fifteen hundred of Tyndale's New Testa- 
ments to be printed at Antwerp, and of bringing five hun- 
dred copies into England at one time. To such an extent 
had the city of London, especially, been pervaded by the 
influence, within the space of two years, that it was deemed 
unsafe for one who had been at all " inclined to the new 
learning," even to breathe its air. Thus, as recorded in 
TunstaPs Register of the trials in his diocese, Sebastian 
Herris, Curate of the Parish Church of Kensington, being 
charged with possessing a copy of Tyndale's New Testa- 
ment, is forbidden, at his dismissal, to tarry or abide with- 
in the city of London, [being so dangerous a place to be 
infected with heresy) above a day and a night ; but to go 
thence elsewhere, and not approach near the city anywhere, 
four miles in circuit, for the space of two years. 

The enemies of light could not yet perceive the futility 
of their warfare ; and while the divine seed sown, as it 
were, by the winds of Heaven, was taking root m every 
direction, they were still erecting their clumsy bulwarks 
to prevent its entrance into England. 



CHAPTER III. 



( TYNDALE'S REFORMATORY WRITINGS. 



"WicKLiFFE had closed his labors as Reformer by giving 
the Bible to his countrymen. In his case, this was the 
natural order of things ; for the mind of his age needed 
to be awakened by a long preparatory process, to a consci- 
ousness of the want which the Scriptures only could sup- 
ply. With Tyndale the process was just the reverse. 
The voice of his age cried out for the word of God ; and 
it was his first object, by meeting this demand, to lay a 
broad and sure foundation for the great work of Reform, 
which he saw to be accomplished. The New Testament 
being completed and sent forth on its mission, he now 
appears as the practical Reformer, and applies its teachings 
in a direct assault upon the doctrines and practices of the 
Romish clergy. 

Well worthy does he show himself, in this respect also, 
to be the Elisha of the elder prophet. In his exposures 
of time-honored abuses, and his stern rebukes of those 



152 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

^' Cesarean Prelates," who sought to perpetuate them for 
their own seliSsh ends, we see the same fearless moral energy, 
the same reference to the supreme authority of God's 
word, and heartfelt love and respect for the common people, 
which distinguished Wickliflfe. With this deep earnest- 
ness was mingled, moreover, a vein of homely, racy humor, 
not unlike that of Luther, which imparts often a vivacity 
and quaint force to his indignant remonstrances and appeals, 
well adapted to influence the popular mind. 

In these writings we find abundant confirmation of one 
important fact, before alluded to : that from the days of 
WicklifiB, there had been little progress, in any respect, 
connected with the essential well-being of the nation, 
except so far as the influence of the Bible had extended. 
In the character of the clergy^ the state of learning in the 
universities, the moral condition of the people, and the 
recognition of their rights, either civil or religious, on the 
part of government, the main current had flowed steadily 
towards a lower deep of darkness, degradation, and 
oppression. The counter current which was now be- 
ginning to make itself felt in every sphere, owed all its 
springs, and for the most part can be directly traced, to 
the reviving influence of the Scriptures. A century and 
a half nearly, during which the vernacular Bible had been 
thrust out of the reach of the mass of the community, 
had developed in the character of the English race no in- 
herent forces for retrieving its condition, and forming itself 
into a free, intelligent and virtuous people. 

The two treatises with which he immediately followed 
his New Testament, marked him out before all Christen- 
dom, as a standard bearer in the cause of the Bible and the 
people, against that of the Pope and priesthood. He had 



tyndale's reformatory writings. 153 

sent forth the New Testament without his name ; ^'follow- 
ing," as he says, ^' the counsel of Christ, which exhorteth 
men to do their good works secretly, and to be content 
with the conscience of well-doing," The consequence was, 
however, that certain anonymous works against the pre- 
lacy by other hands, written in a spirit of bitterness and 
railing with which Tyndale had no fellowship, were con- 
fidently ascribed to him. In the preface to the first of 
these treatises, therefore, he disavows the books falsely 
charged to him, and henceforth appears under his own 
name. From this time onward, it was a name of power 
among both the friends and enemies of the truth, in Eng- 
land. 

The " Parable of the Wicked Mammon" is a development, 
rich with Scripture knowledge, and Christian experience, 
of the connection between faith and works in our salvation, 
and strikes at the root of the popish trust in mere out- 
ward observances and ceremonies. Two or three brief quo- 
tations must suffice from this work, as a sample of its man- 
ner, and an illustration of the pure morality, and univer- 
sal beneyolence resulting from the doctrine of justification 
by faith, rightly understood, and truly received into the 
heart. 

" The Spirit of God accompanieth faith, and bringeth 
with her light, wherewith a man beholdeth himself in the 
law of God, and seeth his miserable bondage and captivity, 
and humbleth himself, and abhorreth himself; she bringeth 
God's promises of all good things in Christ. God worketh 
with his word and in his word. And as his word is preach- 
ed, faith rooteth herself in the heart of the elect, and as 
faith entereth and the word of God is believed, the power 
of God looseth the heart from the captivity and bondage 



154 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

under sin, and knitteth and coupleth him unto God, and to 
the will of God ; altereth him, changeth him clean, fashion- 
eth and forgeth him anew, giveth him power to love, and 
to do that which before it was impossible for him either to 
love or do, and turneth him unto a new nature, so that he 
loveth that which before he hated, and hateth that which 
before he loved ; and is clean altered and changed, and 
contrary disposed ; and is knit and coupled fast to God's 
will, and naturally bringeth forth good works . . . And 
that doth he of his own accord, as a tree bringeth forth 
fruit of her own accord. And as thou needest not to bid 
a tree bring forth fruit, so there is no law to put unto him 
that believe th and is justified by faith. . . . And as a whole 
man when he is athirst tarrieth but for drink, and when he is 
hungry abideth but for meat, and then drinketh and eateth 
naturally, even so is the faithful ever athirst and an hun- 
gred after the will of God, and tarrieth but for occasion. 
Where faith is mighty and strong, there is love fervent, and 
deeds plenteous, and done with exceeding meekness ; where 
faith is weak, there love is cold, and the deeds few, and 
seldom bears flowers and blossoms in winter. 

" The order of love and charity which some dream, the 
Gospel of Christ knoweth not of; that a man should be- 
gin at himself, and serve himself first, and then descend, I 
wot not by what steps. Love seeketh not her own profit, 
but maketh a man to forget himself, and to turn his profit 
to another man, as Christ sought not himself, or his own 
profit, but ours. The term, ^myself,' is not in the Gospel; 
neither yet father, mother, brother, kinsman, that one 
should be preferred in love above another. But Christ is 
all in all things. Every Christian man to another is 
Christ himself; and thy neighbor's need hath as good 



tyndale's reformatory writings. 155 

a right to thy goods as hath Christ himself, which is heir 
and lord over all. And look, what thou owest to Christ, 
that thou owest to thy neighbor's need ; to thy neighbor 
owest thou thine heart, thyself, and all that thou hast and 
canst do. . . . In Christ, we are all of one degree, without 
respect of persons. Notwithstanding, though a Christian 
man's heart be open to all men, and receiveth all men, yet, 
because that his ability of goods extendeth not so far, this 
provision is made, that every man shall care for his own 
household, as father and mother, and thine elders that 
have holpen thee, wife, children and servants. When thou 
hast done thy duty to thy household, and yet hast farther 
abundance of the blessing of God, that thou owest to the 
poor that cannot labor, or would labor and can get no 
work, and are destitute of friends. ... If thy neighbors 
which thou knowest be served, and thou yet have superflu- 
ity, and hearest necessity to be among the brethren a thou- 
sand miles off, to Ihem thou art debtor. Yea, to the very 
infidels we be debtors if they need, so far forth as we main- 
tain them not against Christ, or to blaspheme Christ. — 
Thus is every man that needeth thy help, thy father, 
mother, sister, and brother in Christ ; even as every man 
that doth the will of the Father, is father, mother, brother, 
and sister unto Christ." 

The work which followed this — " The Obedience of a 
Christian Man" — is an exposition of the teachings of Scrip- 
ture, on the social duties of men, in all the relations of 
life. It was intended as a defence of the Bible against 
the charge brought by the clergy, that its circulation 
among the laity tends to confusion and insubordination in 
society. He proves that it is they, on the contrary, who, 
by substituting for the true light of God's word their own 



156 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

false doctrines and traditions, have subverted all social 
order and virtue ; and that their zeal against the Bible is 
but hatred of that, which, if permitted to go freely among 
tne people, would strip them of their ill-gotten power. 

In the first part of the treatise, husbands and wives, pa- 
rents and children, masters and servants, sellers and buyers, 
rulers and ruled, are taught their mutual duties, as set 
forth by direct Scripture precept, or as plainly deducible 
from its great law of love. He is no less faithful to the 
king than to the subject, warning him of the dangers to 
which monarch s are especially liable, and of the final ac- 
count to be rendered by him of all he has done in his high 
office, both good and bad. It is a strong proof, that the 
tyrannical course of Henry VIII. was due less to his nat- 
ural disposition, than to the evil influence of his spiritual 
guides, that he was deeply impressed by this treatise when 
he first read it, and remarked : *' This is a book for me, 
and for all kings." 

The second part is a searching exposure of the abuses 
practised on the people by the priesthood, their corruption 
of Christian doctrines and ordinances; the '^feigned ordi- 
nances," by which they rule so cruelly over the consciences 
of men, and wring from them their worldly goods ; their 
usurpation of the civil power, and the consequent impover- 
ishment, internal confusion, and foreign wars, into which 
their insatiable ambition and avarice has plunged the 
realm. 

*^ * Curse them [so he represents the Pope as saying to 
his vassals, the clergy] four times in the year. Make 
them afraid of every thing, and namely [especially] to 
touch mine anointed ; and make them to fear the sentence 
of the church, suspensions, excommunications, and curses. 



tyndale's reformatory writings. 157 

Be they right or wrong, bear them in hand that they are 
to be feared yet. Preach me and mine authority, and 
how terrible a thing my curse is, and how black it makes 
their souls. On the holidays, which were ordained to 
preach God's word, set up loDg ceremonies, long matins, 
long masses, and long even-songs, and all in Latin, that 
they understand not ; and roll them in darkness, that ye 
may lead them wherever ye will. And lest such things 
should be too tedious, sing some, say some, pipe some, ring 
the bells, and lull them and rock them asleep.' And yet 
Paul (2 Cor. xiv) forbiddeth to speak in the church or 
congregation, save in the tongue that all understand. For 
the layman thereby is not edified or taught. How shall 
the layman say Amen (saith Paul) to thy blessing or 
thanksgiving, when he wotteth not what thou sayest ? He 
wotteth not whether thou* bless or curse. 

*^ ' What then saith the Pope, ' what care I for Paul ? I 
command, by virtue of obedience, to read the Gospel in 
Latin ; let them not pray but in Latin ; no, not their Pa- 
ter Noster. If any be sick, go also and say them a Gos- 
pel, and all in Latin ; yea, to the very corn and fruits of 
the field, in the procession week, preach the Gospel in 
Latin. Make the people believe that it shall grow the 
better.' It is as good to preach it to swine as to men, if 
thou preach it in a tongue which they understand not. — 
How shall I prepare myself to God's commandments? 
How shall I be thankful to Christ for his kindness ? How 
shall I believe the truths and promises which God hath 
sworn, while thou tellest them unto me in a tongue which 
I understand not ? 

" * What then,' saith my Lord of Canterbury, to a priest 
that would have had the New Testament gone forth in 



158 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

English ; * what,' saith he, ^ wouldst thou that the lay 
people should wete what we do ?' " 

" Mark well how many parsonages or vicarages are there 
in the realm, which, at the least, have a plow-land* apiece. 
Then note the land of bishops, abbots, priors, nuns, knights 
of St. John, cathedral churches, colleges, chaun tries, and 
free chapels. For though the house fail in decay, and the 
ordinance of the founder be lost, yet will they not lose 
their lands. What cometh once in, may never more out. 
They make a free chapel of it, so that he which enjoyeth 
it, shall do nought therefore. Besides all this, how many 
chaplains do gentlemen find at their own cost, in their own 
houses ? How many sing for souls by testaments ? Then 
the proving of testaments, the prizing of goods, the Bishop 
of Canterbury's prerogative. Is that not much through 
the realm in a year ? Four oifering days, and privy tithes. 
There is no servant, but that he shall pay somewhat of his 
wages. None shall receive the body of Christ at Easter, 
be he never so poor a beggar, or never so young a lad or 
maid, but they must pay somewhat for it. Then mortua- 
ries for forgotten tithes (say they.) And yet what parson 
or vicar is there, that will forget to have a pigeon-house, 
to peck up somewhat both at sowing-time, and harvest, 
when corn is ripe ? They will forget nothing. No man 
shall die in their debt ; or if any man do, he shall pay it 
when he is dead. They will lose nothing. Why ? It is 
God's; it is not theirs. It is St. Hubert's rents, St. Al- 

♦ " The measurement of the ploic-Iand varied in different counties, and 
in the same counties at different times. In general, it designated as much 
arable land as could bo managed and tilled by one plough, and its team of 
horses or oxen, in the year ; having meadow, pasture, and houses and cattle 
attached to it." — Note to Works of the Eng. Reformers, Vol. I., p. 644. 



tyndale's reformatory writings. 159 

ban's lands, St. Edmond's right, St. Peter's patrimony. — 
Item — if a man die in another man's parish, besides that 
he must pay at home a mortuary for forgotten tithes, he 
must there, also, pay the best he there hath. Whether it be 
a horse of twenty pound, or how good soever he be; either 
a chain of gold of an hundred marks, or five hundred pounds, 
if it so chance. Then bead-rolls. Item — christenings, 
churchings, banns, weddings, offering at weddings, offering 
of wax and lights, which come to their damage ; besides 
the superstitious waste of wax, in torches and tapers, 
throughout the land. Then brothers and pardoners. — 
What get they also by confessions ? . . . . Soul-masses, 
dirges, month-minds, peace-minds. All-souls day, and tren- 
tals. The mother church and the high altar must have 
somewhat in every testament. Offerings at priest's first 
masses. Item — no man is professed, of whatsoever reli- 
gion it be, [i. e. of whatever clerical order,] but he must 
bring somewhat. Then hallowing or rather conjuring of 
churches, chapels, altars, super-altars, chalice, vestment, 
bells. Then book, bell, candlestick, organs, vestments, 
copes, altar-cloths, surplices ; towels, basins, ewers, sheep, 
censor, and all manner of ornaments, must be found them 
freely, they will not give a mite thereunto. Last of 
all, what swarms of begging friars are there ! The parson 
sheareth, the vicar shaveth, the parish priest polieth, the 
friar scrapeth, and the pardoner pareth ; we lack but a 
butcher to pull off the skin. 

^' W^hat get they in their spiritual law (as they call it) 
in a year, at the arches, and in every diocese ? What get 
the commissioners and officials, with their somners and ap- 
paritors, by bawdrey in a year ? Shall ye not find curates 
enough, which to flatter the commissioners and oflScials 



160 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

withal, that they may go quit themselves, shall €)pen to 
them the confessions of the richest of their parishes, whom 
they cite privately, and lay to their charges secretly. If 
they desire to know their accusers, ^ Nay,' say they, ' the 
matter is known well enough, and to more than ye are 
ware of. Come, lay your hand on the book ; if ye for- 
swear yourself, we shall bring proofs ; we will handle you, 
we will make an ensample of you.' Oh, how terrible are 
they ! ^ Come and swear,' say they, ^ that you will be 
obedient to our injunctions !' And by that craft, wring 
they their purses, and make them drop as long as there is 
a penny in them." 

" ^ Not given to filthy lucre, but abhorring covetous- 
iiess ;' and as Peter saith, ' Taking the oversight of them, 
not as though ye were compelled thereunto, but willingly. 
Not of desire of filthy lucre, but of a good mind ; not as 
though ye were lords over the parishes. Over the parishes, 
quoth he ! Peter, Peter, thou wast too long a fisher ; 
thou wast never brought up at the arches, neither wast 
Master of the Rolls, not yet Chancellor of England. They 
are not content to reign over king and emperor, and the 
whole earth ; but challenge authority also in heaven and in 
hell. It is not enough for them to reign over all that are 
quick, but have created them a purgatory, to reign also 
over the dead, and to have one kingdom more than Grod 
himself hath." 

** They take away first God's word, with faith, hope, 
peace, unity, love, and concord ; then house and land, rent 
and fee, tower and town, goods and cattle, and the very 
meat out of men's mouths. All these live by purgatory. - 



TYNDALE^S REFORMATORY WRITINGS. 161 

When others weep for their friends, they sing merrily ; 
when others lose their friends, they get friends. The Pope, 
with all his pardons, is grounded on purgatory. Priests, 
monks, canons, friars, with all other swarms of heretics, do 
but employ purgatory, and fill hell. Every mass, say they, 
delivereth one soul out of purgatory. If that were true — 
yea, if ten masses were enough for one soul — yet were the 
parish priests and curates, of every parish, sufficient to 
scour purgatory. All the other costly work of men might 
be well spared." 

In the course of the treatise, he explains his view of 
what the Scriptures teach respecting the Sacraments, the 
offices in the church, the support of the clergy, and their 
relation to the civil power. In regard to all these, his 
views coincide in all essential points with those of Wick- 
liffe. There are but two Sacraments, Baptism and the 
Lord's Supper ; and their efficacy depends on the spirit in 
which they are received. — There are but two offices in the 
Church of Christ, Bishop or Elder, and Deacon. The 
duty of the first is to serve the church in spiritual things, 
being '^ nothing but an officer to teach, and to minister the 
Sacraments ordained, and not to be a mediator between 
God and us." ^' According as every man believeth God's 
promises, longeth for them, and is diligent to pray unto 
God to fulfill them, so is his prayer heard, as good the 
prayer of a cobbler, as of a cardinal ; and of a butcher, 
as of a bishop ; and the blessing of a baker that knoweth 
the truth, is as good as the blessing of our most holy 
father the pope." ^' Christ, when he had fulfilled his 
course, anointed his apostles and disciples with the same 
spirit, and sent them forth, without all manner of disguis- 
ing, like other men also, to preach the atonement and 



162 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

peace which Christ had made between Grod and man. The 
apostles, likewise, disguised no man, but chose men anointed 
with the same spirit ; one to preach the word of God, 
whom we call, after the Greek tongue, a bishop or priest ; 
that is, in English, an overseer and an elder." *^ This 
overseer, because he was taken from his own business and 
labor, to preach God's word unto the parish, hath right, 
by the authority of his office, to challenge an honest living 
of the parish, as thou mayst see in the Evangelists, and 
also in Paul. For who will have a servant, and will not 
give him meat, drink, and raiment, and all things neces- 
eary ? How they would pay him, whether in money, or 
assign him so much rent, or in tithes, as the guise now is 
in many countries, was at their liberty." *^ Likewise, in 
every congregation chose they another after the same ex- 
ample, and even so anointed, as it is to see in the said 
chapter of Paul, and Acts vi. Whom after the Greek 
word we call deacon ; that is to say, in English, a servant, 
or a minister, whose office it was to help and assist the 
priest, and gather up his duty, and gather for the poor of 
the parish, which were destitute of friends, and could not 

work Every man gave according to his ability, 

and as God put into his heart, to the maintenance of the 
priest, deacon, and other common ministers, and of the 
poor, and to find learned men to teach, and so forth." 
" ' We,' will they say, ^ are the pope, cardinal, and bishops; 
all authority is ours. The Scripture pertaineth unto us, 
and is our possession. And we have a law, that whoso- 
ever presumes to preach without the authority of the 
bishops, is excommunicate in the deed-doing. Whence, 
therefore, hast thou thine authority V will they say. * The 
old Pharisees had the Scripture in captivity, likewise, and 



TYND ale's reformatory WRITINGS. 163 

asked Christ : By what authority doest thou these things ? 
.... Christ asked them another question, and so will I do 
our hypocrites. Who sent you ? God ? Nay, he that is 
sent of Grod, speaketh God's word. Now speak ye not 
God's word, nor anything, save your own laws, made clean 
contrary unto God's word. . . . And as for mine authority, 
or who sent me, I report me unto my works, as Christ. 
If God's word bear record that I say truth, why should 
any man doubt but that God, the father of truth and of 
light, hath sent me ? . . . ^ By this means, thou wilt that 
every man be a preacher,' will they say. ^ Nay, verily. For 
God will that not, and therefore, will I it not; no more 
than I would that every man were mayor of London, 
or every man of the realm King thereof. God is not the 
God of dissention and strife, but of unity and peace, and 
of good order. I will, therefore, that where a congrega- 
tion is gathered together in Christ, one be chosen after the 
rule of Paul, and that he only preach, and else no man 
openly : but that every man teach his household after the 
same doctrine. But if the preacher preach false ; then 
whosoever's heart God moveth, to the same it shall be law- 
ful to rebuke and improve the false teacher, with the clear 
and manifest Scripture, and that same is, no doubt, a true , 
prophet sent of God. For the Scripture is God's, and 
their 's that believe, and not the false prophets.' " 

The law of spiritual life and growth, as contained with- 
in each congregation of believers, being derived continually 
from Christ, the ever present head, is beautifully developed 
in the following passage : 

-^ Here [within the congregations of Christ] all thing is 
free and willingly ; and the Holy Ghost bringeth them 
together, which maketh their wills free, and ready to be- 



stow themselves on their neighbor's profit : and they that 
come offer themselves, and all that they have, or can do 
to serve the Lord and their brethren ; and every man, as 
he is found apt and meet to serve his neighbor, is put into 
office. And of the Holy Ghost are they sent, with the 
consent of their brethren, and with their own consent, also ; 
and God's word ruleth in that congregation, into which 
word every man confirmeth [conformeth] his will ; and 
Christ, which is always present, is the head." 

He is equally explicit in regard to the clerical claim, 
still as perfectly intact as in the days of Wickliffe, of ex- 
emption from civil jurisdiction. In the summary, at the 
close of the book, of its contents, he says : 

^' I proved, also, that all men, without exception, are 
under the temporal sword, whatsoever names they give 
themselves. Because the priest is chosen out of the lay- 
men, to teach this obedience, is that a lawful cause for him 
to disobey ? Because he preacheth that the laymen may 
not steal, is it, therefore, lawful for him to steal unpunished? 
Because thou teachest me that I may not kill, or if I do, 
the King must kill me again, is it, therefore, lawful for 
thee to kill and go free ? . . . . The priests of the old law, 
with their high bishop, Aaron, and all his successors 
though they were anointed by God's commandment, and 
appointed to serve God in his temple, and exempt from all 
offices and ministering of worldly matters, were yet under 
the temporal sword, if they brake the laws. ... I proved, 
also, that no king hath power to grant them such liberties." 

The clergy still held the monopoly of all the high secu- 
lar offices of the kingdom. Thus speaks the Keformer on 
this point : 

'' Let kings take their duty of their subjects, and that 



tyndale's reformatory writings. 165 

is necessary to the defence of the realm. Let them rule 
their realms themselves, with the help of laymen that are 
sage, wise, learned, and expert. Is it not a shame above all 
shames, and a monstrous thing, that no man should be found 
able to govern a worldy kingdom, save by bishops and pre- 
lates, that have forsaken the world, and are taken out of the 
world, and appointed to preach the Kingdom of God ? . . . 
To preach God's word is too much for half a man ; and to 
minister a temporal kingdom is too much for half a man ; 
either other requireth an whole man ; one, therefore, can- 
not well do both. . . . "Paul saith in the ninth chapter of the 
first Corinthians, * Woe is me if I preach not.' A terrible 
saying, verily, for popes, cardinals, and bishops. If he 
had said, ^ Woe be unto me if I fight not, and move prin- 
ces to war, or if I increase not St. Peter's patrimony, (as 
they call it),' it had been a more easy saying for them." 

The Preface to this book, itself about thirty pages in 
length, is properly a tract in defence of the translation of 
the Scriptures into the mother tongue, and their unrestricted 
use by the laity. He argues this from the fact, that Moses 
gave the people of Israel the law in their mother tongue ; 
that the Prophets wrote, and David uttered his psalms in 
the mother tongue ; that the sermons, recorded in the Acts, 
were preached to the people in the mother tongue ; that the 
Bible was translated by Jerome into his mother tongue. — 
" What should be the cause," he asks, " that we, which 
walk in the broad day, should not see as well as they that 
walked in the night, or that we should not see as well at 
noon as they did in the twilight ? Came Christ to make 
the world more blind ? By this means, Christ is the dark- 
ness of the world, and not the light, as he saith himself." 
He pleads for it, also, because God, in the Old Testament, 



166 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

required in all the people a knowledge of the law, and 
Christ, in the New, commanded to search the Scriptures; 
because, as Christ foretold, there are false Christs and 
false prophets, whose deeds and doctrines must be judged 
bj Scripture; because the spiritual guides of the people 
teach doctrines contrary to, and subversive of each other, 
and it cannot be known which is right but by Scripture. 

^' ' Nay,' say they, * the Scripture is so hard, that thou 
couldst never understand it, but by the doctors.' That is, 
I must measure the meteyard by the cloth. Here be 
twenty cloths of div^ers lengths, and divers breadths ; how 
shall I be sure of the length of the meteyard by them ? I 
suppose, rather must I be sure of the length of the mete- 
yard, and thereby measure and judge the cloths. If I 
must first believe the doctor, then is the doctor first true, 
and the truth of the Scripture dependeth of his truth ; and 
so the truth of God springeth of the truth of man. Thus, 
Antichrist turneth the roots of the trees upwards." It 
was pretended, moreover, that no man could understand 
Scripture, till he had made himself master of philosophy, 
by the study of Aristotle and the doctors. This leads 
Tyndale to notice the character of the so-called philosophy 
taught in the universities, which we find to be no other 
than those same solemn frivolities of Dun Scotus, and the 
other scholastics which had driven all true learning out of 
Oxford in the fourteenth century. As then, it was con- 
nected with the bitterest hostility to revelation. No one 
could speak with more authority on this point than Tyn- 
dale, who had resided there so many years, and had parta- 
ken in the struggle consequent on the attempt of Christian 
scholars to introduce the Greek and Roman classics, and 
the original Scriptures into the course of academic study. 



tyndale's reformatory writings. 167 

He maintains, that, so far from this philosophy being ne- 
cessary to prepare one for a knowledge of the Scriptures, 
these are needed to protect him from the contaminating 
influence of the philosophy. " And then, if they go abroad, 
and walk by the fields and meadows of all manner of doc- 
tors and philosophers, they should catch no harm. They 
should discern the poison from the honey, and bring home 
nothing but that which is wholesome.'' 

*^ But now," he proceeds, " do ye clean contrary, ye drive 
them from God's word, and will let no man come thereto 
until he have been two years master of art. First they 
nosel them in sophistry, and in benefundatum. And there 
corrupt they their judgments with apparent arguments, 
and with alleging unto them texts of logic, of natural phi- 
lautia^ of metaphysic, and moral philosophy, and of all 
manner of books of Aristotle, and of all manner of doctors, 
which yet they never saw. Moreover, one holdeth this, 
another that; one is a real, another a nominal. What 
wonderful dreams they have of their predicaments, univer- 
sals, second intentions, qiii ditieSj haec scities^ and rela- 
tives. And whether specia fundata in chimera be vera 
species. And whether this proposition be true, 7ion ens 
est aliquid^ whether ens be cBquivocum^ or univocum. — 
Ens is a voice only, say some. Ens is univocum^ saith 
another, and descendeth into ens creatum^ and into ens in- 
creatum^ per modus intrinsecos. When they have this 
way brawled eight, ten, or twelve years, or more, and after 
that their judgments are utterly corrupt, then they begin 
their divinity ; not at the Scripture, but every man taketh 
a sundry doctor, which doctors are as sundry, and as di- 
vers, the one contrary unto the other, as there are divers 
fashions and monstrous shapes, none like another, among 



168 THE ENGLISH BIBLE, 

our sects of religion. Every religion, every university, 
almost every man, hath a sundry divinity. Now whatso- 
ever every man findeth with his doctor, that is his Grospel, 
and that only is true with him, and that holdeth he all his 
life long ; and every man to maintain his doctor withal, 
corrupteth the Scripture, and fashioneth it after his own 
imagination, as a potter doth his clay. Of what text thou 
provest hell, will another prove purgatory, another liynho 
liatrum^ another the assumption of our lady, and another 
shall prove of the same text that an ape hath a tail. And 
of what text the grave [gray] friar proveth that our lady 
was without original sin, will the black friar prove that she 
was conceived in original sin." 

How finely, after this exposure of the folly of human 
wisdom, does Tyndale say : " God is not man's imagina- 
tion, but only that which he saith of himself. God is noth- 
ing but his law and his promises; that is to say, that 
which he biddeth thee to do, and that which he biddeth 
thee believe and hope. God is but his word, as Christ 
saith, (John viii.,) I am that I say unto you; that is to 
say. That which I preach am I, my words are spirit and 
life. God is that only which he testifyeth of himself; and 
to imagine any other thing than that, is damnable idolatry. 
Therfore saith the 118th Psalm, Happy are they which 
search the testimonies of the Lord ; that is to say, that 
whicli God testifyeth and witnesscth unto us. But how 
shall I that do, when ye will not let me have his testimo- 
nies or witnesses, in a tongue which I understand ? Will 
ye resist God ? Will ye forbid him to give his Spirit 
unto the lay, as well as unto you ? Hath he not made the 
English tongue ? Why forbid ye him to speak in the 
English tongue, then, as well as in Latin ?'' 



CHAPTER IV. 



CARDINAL WOLSEY'S MEASURES TO SILENCE 
TYNDALE. 

It is not strange that a voice like this should sorely have 
disturbed thoss, whose treachery and oppression was thus 
laid open, in plain English, for all classes of the laity to 
read and comment on. No wonder that Cardinal Wolsey 
and his Bishops thought it necessary to silence this terrible 
censor, who, from his obscure retreat in a foreign land, 
could stretch forth his hand, and shake the very pillars of 
the hierarchy. From this time, it became one of their 
leading objects, by force or fraud, to compass his appre- 
hension and death. 

In June, 1528, the Lord Cardinal instructed Sir John 
Hackett, still envoy at the Court of Brabant, to procure 
from the Princess Regent his arrest, on the charge of 
heresy, and that of two other men, viz., Roye, errone- 
ously supposed to be still engaged with him in translating 
the Bible, and Harman, a wealthy and honorable English 
merchant residing in Antwerp, who was known to have 



]70 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

been zealously engaged in bringing the New Testament 
into England. But Hackett was obliged to reply, that the 
Privy Council, after debating the case with him, had de- 
cided that it was unlawful, even for the Emperor himself, 
to deliver up a heretic, except after examination first held 
where he was ; and not then, except by advice of Inquisi- 
tors of the faith there present. They promised, however, 
to apprehend the obnoxious persons if they could be found 
together with their books; and if, on being confronted 
with learned men from England — who it was requested 
might be sent over for the purpose — their guilt should ap- 
pear, they were to be delivered to Wolsey, or punished 
there, ^' according to their deeds. 

After fourteen days' search, Harman and his wife — " as 
greatly suspected of such like faction as her husband is''^ 
— were taken and committed to prison, and an inventory 
of their goods delivered to the Emperor. Still, Hackett 
saw so little prospect of success in this case, that he sug- 
gests to Wolsey to drop the charge of heresy, and demand 
Harman as a traitor to the King of England. 

" I would," writes this honorable ambassador, " that your 
Grace had this Richard Harman there in England ; for, 
as I hear, he is a Roethe of great mischief. And to get 
him out of these countries, I know no better means, at this 
time, than, if the King's Highness have any action of trea- 
son at him, that his Highness, or your Grace, write a good 
letter to my Lady, that she should send you the foresaid 
Harman, as traitor to the King — leaving the heresy beside, 
to the correction of these countries, if your Grace think so 
good ; and in this manner we may have tivo sti'ings to our 
bow : for I doubt greatly, after the statutes of these coun- 
tries, that, revoking his heresies,, for the first time he will 



wolsey's measures to silence tyndale. 171 

escape with a slender punishment ; but for treason to the 
King, they cannot pardon him in these parts, after the 
Statutes of our Intercourse, dated the year 1505. I cer- 
tify your Grace, that it were a good deed, and very conve- 
nient, to chastise these Lutherans that be accused of her- 
esy, that they were as well comprehended in the * Inter- 
course ' as traitors be ; for as soon as they be past the 
seas, they know no more God, neither King." 

Wolsey seized on this hint, and obtained a letter from 
the King, requesting that Harman should be given up as 
a traitor. But the Princess required, in turn, specifica- 
tions of his crime ; and finally, Hackett informs his Grace, 
that, " notwithstanding the King's patent letters, the Lady 
Margaret would not deliver up the heretics." Mr. Harman 
was released, after an imprisonment of more than seven 
months — the term for which he could be detained having 
expired, without any proof having been brought by Hackett 
of the charges made against him. But the Envoy soon 
found that he had been meddling with a game, at which 
two could play. Having gone to Antwerp a few weeks 
after, on some business for the King, he found himself ar- 
rested at Harman's suit for all the costs and charges of his 
imprisonment ; since '^ the law of Antwerp [a free, imperial 
city,] had aforetime declared him, by their sentence, ab- 
solute, free and frank, of all such actions as the Margrave, 
or the Scout of Antwerp, as officers of the Prince, by my 
information laid to his charge." Next day, he was obliged 
to answer for himself before the city Senate ; and after a 
mortifying detention, was only permittted to depart, on 
condition that he should appear in person, or by his Pro- 
curator, whenever summoned, for the farther prosecution 
of the cause. On arriving at Brussels, he made his com- 



172 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

plaint to the Princess and her Council, who professed 
themselves much displeased with the treatment he had re- 
ceived ; but except a severe rebuke to the Lords of Ant- 
werp, and a requisition that their Amant (the officer who 
had caused his arrest) should ask his pardon, no amend 
was made for the affront, and Hackett did not again find it ex- 
pedient to be much in Antwerp. The British merchant had 
read him a lesson, which he long had cause to remember. 

All efforts to discover Tyndale and Roye had been thus 
far unsuccessful ; but Wolsey was not disheartened. It 
had been ascertained, that the Testaments with which 
Harman had been concerned, *'were sent to him out of Ger- 
many '' — a vexatious proof that Warham's expensive pur- 
chase had not exhausted the supply. But it might also 
furnish a clue to the translators. He therefore took into 
his confidence two Friars of Greenwich — West and Flegg 
by name — and dispatched them secretly to Cologne, with 
a letter to Counsellor Rincke (the same who lent his influ- 
ence to Cochlasus in 1525) soliciting his aid for the appre- 
hension of these two men, as well as in buying up " all 
books printed in the English language." They were au- 
thorized by the Cardinal to draw on Hackett, for whatever 
money was necessary to effect these objects. 

The honorable Councillor was prompt to meet the wishes 
of his great friend at the Court of England. He informs 
him that he had himself been to Frankfort on the business, 
and, ^^ hy gifts and presents ^'^'' had so conciliated the Frank- 
fort Consuls, as well as some of the Senators and Judges, as 
to secure, through their aid, possession of ^*all the books 
from every quarter,'' which, but for his labors, would soon 
have been brought over to England and Scotland, ^^ enclosed 
in packages, artfully covered over with and concealed in flax 



wolsey's measures to silence tyndale. 173 

I have," he adds, *' lately brought the printer himself, John 
Schott [of Strasburg], before the Consuls, Judges, and Sena- 
tors of Frankfort. I put him upon oath, that he should con- 
fess whatever books he had printed in the English lan- 
guage, the German, French, or any other idiom. Then, 
upon his said oath, he confessed that he had as yet printed 
only one thousand books {sex quaternionum) and one 
thousand {novem quaternionum) and this by the order 
of Roye and Hutchyn [Tyndale], who, wanting money, 

were not able to pay for the books printed 

Wherefore, / have purchased therm almost all^ and now 
have the7)% in my house at Cologne^ He then desires in- 
structions how he shall dispose of them ; and closes with 
the suggestion : " As to myself and mine, by the favor of 
God, possibly there may be an opportunity for his Royal 
Highness and your Grace to recompense us. May your 
Grace, therefore, prosper many happy years !" 

Of Tyndale, Roye, or their accomplices, he could as 
yet find no trace ; but he promises, with his " utmost dili- 
gence" to ferret out their haunts, and get them into cus- 
tody. For further consultation with his Grace on this im- 
portant mission, he sent back West, together with his own 
son and a confidential servant, '•'' who," he says, ^^ will con- 
ceal and keep quiet the whole matter, whatsoever your 
Grace may commit to them — whom I specially send over 
into the presence of the King and your Grace, for the 
more convenient dispatch of this very business, that I may 
explain and execute the matter in a way, which may be 
acceptable to the King's grace and yours." 

He seems, however, to have spent his labor, and the 
money of his employers, to but little profit. The two 
thousand books referred to in his letter, as purchased from 



174 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Schott, were, no doubt, those anonymous productions be- 
fore alluded to, written by Koye and others against the 
Cardinal. Schott, who was, of course, anxious to rid him- 
self of his dead stock, may have baited Kincke, by pretend- 
ing that it consisted, in part, of works by Tyndale ; but it 
does not appear that he ever printed any thing at Stras- 
burg. 

As to the Reformer himself, the Councillor was entirely 
off the track. Tyndale was, at this time, at Marburg in 
Hesse Cassel, where the new and flourishing Protestant 
University, the first ever established, had called together 
men whose eminent scholarship, and congeniality of views 
with his own, must have rendered it a residence equally 
delightful and advantageous. During this year and part 
of the next, (1528-9,) the only press then existing at Mar- 
burg was kept in busy occupation by Tyndale and his be- 
loved associate. Frith, with new works in English, for the 
instruction of their countrymen. Here is dated the short 
treatise on the Scripture Doctrine of Marriage, and the ex- 
position of 1 Cor. vii; both of which were intended to 
counteract those lax and corrupting views of the conjugal 
relation, which had gained currency through the influence 
of a clergy without principle and above law. 

Meanwhile, Tyndale's writings and his New Testament 
were making steady progress in England, in spite of all 
vigilance and opposition. It is a deeply interesting fact, 
that it was among the humble believers, whom, under the 
name of Lollards, we have seen enduring persecution for 
their attachment to Wicklifi'e's Bible, that the most eager 
interest was manifested in the improved translation. They 
had still their secret meetings, for the reading and exposi- 
tion of the Scriptures, and other devout exercises, in Lon- 



wolsey's measures to silence tyndale. 175 

don, as also in Colchester, Witham, Braintree, and various 
other places in Essex, and in the Friary of Clare in Suf- 
folk ; and it was chiefly from their ranks that the Bishops 
were furnished with the victims, through whose punish- 
ment they sought to check in the community the growing 
desire to become acquainted with the Scriptures. Yet we 
have the most satisfactory evidence, that they continued 
to increase in numbers, as well as in the depth and ardor 
of their piety, and that their influence was felt as a power- 
ful leaven through the humbler classes of the community. 
These ^' Congregations" — so they were now called — seem to 
have been strictly assemblies of believers, organized on the 
model of the apostolic churches, for the stated worship of 
God, and the enjoyment of the sacraments. They will 
come again before our notice, in the story of Frith, and 
still more distinctly during the persecutions in the reign 
of Mary. 

But alarming as was the aspect of afi*airs in England, 
when Bincke made his report to the Lord Cardinal, that 
dignitary seems to have given no farther attention to the 
matter. Before the end of the year, he was too busy in 
negotiating the King's divorce, and in otherwise propping 
up his own falling fortunes, to concern himself either with 
apprehending heretics, or rewarding the services of such 
friends as the disinterested patrician of Cologne. Hence- 
forth, he appears only as a subordinate character, and a 
man of higher mark takes the lead in this great conflict. 



CHAPTER V; 



THE NEW ANTAGONIST. 

The steady progress of liglit, during the two years fol- 
lowing the introduction of Tyndale's New Testament into 
England, had convinced the prelacy, that it could not be 
arrested by authority and force alone. The public mind 
was deeply infected with the new opinions ; and the more 
they strove against the influence by outward violence, the 
more it grew. They were at length compelled to yield so 
much to truth, as to come down from their proud position, 
and meet it in its own way ; to submit to what they most 
abhorred — the discussion of the case, before the people, in 
plain English. They felt too, little as they would have 
been willing to confess it, that no common opponent would 
answer, to measure lances with William Tyndale. They 
selected for the purpose one, who in natural genius, ac- 
complished scholarship, and power as a writer, was, by 
common consent, the choicest man in England. His readi- 
ness and felicity as an extempore orator, had gained him 
the name of" the English Demosthenes ;'' while his lite- 
rary productions had placed him among the most elegant 
Latinists, and the most admired philosophers and wits of 
Europe, He had held conspicuous public stations already 



THE NEW ANTAGONIST. 177 

more than twenty years ; and as Advocate, Under-Sheriff 
and Justice of the Peace for the city of London, had won 
the highest general estimation, as a man of profound legal 
knowledge, and almost unequalled sagacity and skill in the 
maDagement of public business. In 1517, in compliance 
with the imperative command of Henry VIII., though 
much against his own wishes, he entered the immediate 
service of the crown ; and from that time, exercised a lead- 
ing influence on the affairs of the realm. But his power 
was not merely that of talent and station. His unspotted 
domestic virtue, true old-Roman contempt of luxury and 
show, and his unimpeachable integrity in every public re- 
lation, in a time of unsurpassed extravagance and corrup- 
tion — when even cardinals and bishops hardly made a se- 
cret of their profligacy, and bribery was the rule in courts 
of justice — had given him a moral weight in the nation, 
such as was possessed by no other man. 

It is not strange, then, that when Sir Thomas More 
consented, at the solicitation of the Bishops, to undertake 
the refutation of the growing heresy, its opponents should 
have indulged the most confident anticipations, that its 
influence with the popular mind was about to suffef a com- 
plete overthrow. There were strong reasons, too, why the 
friends of truth should be satisfied with the choice. In 
addition to Sir Thomas More's reputation for candor and 
uprightness, he had shown leanings, in his previous life, 
which might naturally lead them to expect from him great«^jr 
liberality towards their views, than could be looked for 
from the clergy. He had been early linked, by the most 
Intimate literary and religious friendships, with the cause 
of progress. From his youth, he had been a passionate 
lover of classic learning, then so closely associated with 

8* 



178 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the study of the Scriptures. The enlightened and pious 
Dean Colet, before mentioned as the first lecturer on Paul's 
Epistles at Oxford, was his spiritual confidant and adviser, 
and was regarded by him with the reverence and affection 
due to a father. While still at the university, his acquain- 
tance with Erasmus, who had already commenced his 
splendid career as the champion of liberal culture, gave a 
powerful impulse and direction to his mental development. 
It could hardly fail, that, while drinking with Erasmus at 
the fountain of the Muses — experiencing in himself the 
solid benefits, and the exquisite pleasures of communion 
with the great masters of thought and style — young More 
should come to look, with his friend's eyes, on the obstacles 
then opposed to the progress of true learning, in the char- 
acter and influence of the clergy. He became, heart and 
soul, one of the noble corps, who, with Erasmus at its 
head, broke the ranks of Obscurantism in the sixteenth 
century. The weapons of his leader, those light arrows 
feathered with wit, but tipt with the fatal poison for the 
darklings — truth — were those also which More excelled in 
handling. Indeed, in the opinion of Dean Colet, he was 
the only real wit of his time in England ; and he used his 
power unsparingly against the owls and bats, who had so 
long held undisturbed reign in the schools. 

The friendship, cemented by so many kindred quali- 
ties, grew with years. On Erasmus' second visit to Eng- 
land, enriched with wider knowledge, and laden with lau- 
rels, More's house was his home ; and it was here that he 
wrote his famous satire on the Monks — " Moria, or The 
Praise of Folly.'''' In 1515, being sent by the King on 
a commercial embassy to the Netherlands, Sir Thomas 
had the pleasure of doing his friend a very good service in 



THE NEW ANTAGONIST. 179 

reference to this book, as well as in another respect, of still 
more importance to the interests of religion. Through 
Erasmus, whom he met at Bruges, and other distinguished 
literati of the Low Countries, he was made acquainted, 
more fully than he could be in England, with the hostility 
which all of them — but especially Erasmus — had 4o en- 
counter from the enemies of liberal learning. At this 
time, the contest raged mainly round two points — his Mo- 
ria^ whose biting satire had deeply wounded the self-love 
of the lower clergy, against whom it was particularly di- 
rected; and his projected publication of the Greek New 
Testament from manuscripts, with a new Latin transla- 
tion. 

The Theological Faculty of the University of Louvain,* 
took it upon themselves, in a special manner, to frown on 
these irreverent and sacrilegious proceedings ; even decry- 
ing, with the utmost fury, the study of the Greek language, 
as not only useless, but in the highest degree pernicious to 
theologians. One of their number, Martin Dorpius by 
name, a respectable Latin scholar, and a well-disposed 
man — but with conservative tendencies, which led him to 
take alarm at every thing new — had assailed the labors of 
Erasmus, in a published letter, severely censuring the 
Moria; but, above all, the proposed New Testament. 
This, as an innovation tending to weaken the authority of 
tradition, he deprecated as full of peril to the interests of 
religion. The temperate reply of Erasmus was followed 
by another letter from Dorpius, reiterating his previous 
charges. By this time, Erasmus was at Basle, fully oc- 
cupied with printing his New Testament ; and More felt 
himself called on to take up the pen in his defence. He 

* Founded in 1426 j in the 16th century, it had 6000 students. 



180 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

addressed a letter to Dorpius, in which he vindicated the 
propriety of thus exposing the faults of the clergy, and 
fully justified the efforts of his friend to promote the study 
of the Scriptures. Dorpius had said, that the theologian 
has more important and more difficult things on his hands 
than the explanation of the Bible I More wishes him joy, 
that a book, in which Jerome and Augustine found so 
much which was difficult, should all be so plain and easy 
to him ; yet wonders much that he could place the hair- 
splitting questions, arbitrary distinctions, and stupid repe- 
titions of Peter Lombard's Sentences, and similar works, 
in a higher rank than the study of the Bible. So convin- 
cingly, yet in so kind a spirit, did he combat the alleged 
necessity and obligation of adhering to the Vulgate, as 
sole and supreme authority, and plead for a thorough 
knowledge of Greek, as the only reliable basis of New 
Testament interpretation, that Dorpius was wholly brought 
over to his views. He immediately devoted himself with 
such ardor to the study of Greek, and took part so deci- 
dedly with the friends of liberal learning, that his colleagues 
turned all their vengeance on him, as an apostate from 
their ranks, and never rested till they drove him from the 
Professor's chair. 

Two years after, 1517, Sir Thomas More surprised the 
literary world by his philosophical romance, Utopia ; a 
splendid blossom of genius and culture, but deriving its 
chief interest to us from its views of various matters con- 
nected with religion, especially of religious toleration and 
the rights of conscience. A few of the most noticeable 
points only can be mentioned. 

The citizens of The Happy Republic, with few excep- 
tions, believe in an infinite, incomprehensible, everywhere 



THE NEW ANTAQONIST. 181 

present Being, whom they call Father ; but from this cen 
tre, they diverge into many varieties of religions belief. 
It is one of their fundamental laws that *^ each mo.n can 
live according to his own religion^ and that no violence be 
used to convert him to another faith?'^ For they think it 
unseemly and arrogant to attempt to force on all what one 
may happen to esteem as true ; and if there is but one true 
religion, it must, in due time, by the aid of reason and 
gentleness in its advocates, win the victory by its own in- 
herent power. Christianity found easy access among this 
people ; and the adherents of the old faith neither sought to 
deter any from becoming its converts, or persecuted them 
afterwards. Only when a new proselyte was so excessive 
and denunciatory in his zeal as to endanger the public 
peace, he was exiled, without farther punishment, from 
Utopia. Disbelievers in the immortality of the soul, and 
in a future state of rewards and punishments, were alone dis- 
franchised on account of their opinions, being counted as 
brutes, incapable of being influenced by the motives neces- 
sary to constitute a useful or safe citizen. Yet even these 
were not punished with death, nor terrified by threats into 
hypocrisy ; and the priests and fathers of the community 
sought, by argument and reason, to cure them of their 
folly. 

The organization of the priesthood in the republic, fur- 
nishes opportunity for many significant hints at abuses in 
the Romish Church. The priests of Utopia are few in 
number, only thirteen in each city ; they are chosen by 
the people from the worthiest of the land, — of the good, 
the best — and that there may be no constraint in the mat- 
ter, by secret vote. Public opinion demands of them the 
greatest sanctity of character; which, however, is not 



182 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

deemed incompatible with' marriage. They conduct the 
public worship and exercise the oflSice of censors of morals, 
with no power, however, except to counsel and admonish. 
They hold no civil office. In case of war a deputation of 
priests accompanies the army, their business being to pray 
— first, for peace ; second, for a bloodless victory to their 
countrymen. They have the charge of education, and the 
result of their capacity and fidelity is universal intelligence 
and mental activity. The youth of Utopia are thoroughly 
grounded by them, first, in good morals and religion ; then 
in the principles of their government, in music, logic, math- 
ematical science, astronomy, and in the G-reek language 
and literature. All instruction is given in the mother 
tongue. 

A recent Catholic biographer of Sir Thomas More,* 
anxious for the consistency of this great champion of the 
Church, maintains that the Utopia is to be regarded as 
simply a work of pleasantry and fancy, not intended as an 
exposition of his real views either on government or reli- 
gion. But it is not usual to write even a work of fancy for 
the express purpose of commending principles exactly the 
opposite of those which the author approves ; especially, 
when the application to the circumstances of the time is so 
unavoidable as in the Utopia. Taken, moreover, in con- 
nection with his previous relations, no room is left to doubt 
that, at this period, he recognized the need at many 
points of a reform in the existing church, and that he was 
the advocate of universal religious toleration. 

Such had been the general character and course of this 

* Rudhart, TIiottuls Morus, Augsburg, 1852. To this interesting work 
I am indebted for the materials of the foregoing chapter. 



THE NEW ANTAGONIST. 183 

distinguished man till past his fortieth year.* On what 
grounds he could appear as the antagonist of Tyndale ; 
why he did not rather welcome the honest efforts of the 
Reformer, and join hand in hand with him to promote the 
progress of intelligence and religion, must have been a mat- 
ter of query to many at that day. But however that was 
to be explained, at least candor, justice, and philosophic 
liberality in the treatment of his opponents, might be con- 
fidently expected of Sir Thomas More. 

* The year of his birth cannot be exactly ascertained ; but from the man- 
ner in which both he and Tyndale refer to his age in their controversy, it is 
evident that he must have been considerably the senior, and that the state- 
ment in the text is within bounds. 



I 



THE REFORMER TRANSFORMED. 

There are many examples of the theoretical reformer, 
converted by the practical experience of life into the most 
rigid of conservatives. Seldom, indeed, is so strange a 
transformation witnessed, as that now to be presented in 
the case of Sir Thomas More. But his own writings 
furnish a sufficient solution of the problem, and show that 
the process was perfectly natural, by which the advocate 
of freedom and progress became the champion of a church 
which repudiates progress, and denies even the right to 
think; the opposer of faithful translations of the Bible, 
and of their free use among the people ; and the intoler- 
ant, bloody persecutor. The case is one full of instruction 
to those in every age, who think to secure the peace of so- 
ciety, and the permanence of existing institutions, by shut- 
ting out the light of truth from the common mind. It is 
a service perilous alike to principles and to reputation. 

During the eleven years which had elapsed since the 
Utopia saw the light, great changes had been witnessed in 
Europe, which threatened in their onward progress to sub- 
vert the ancient religious institutions of all Christendom. 
Before 1517, the name of Luther bad scarcely been heard 



CHAPTER VI. V 



THE REFORMER TRANSFORMED. 185 

of out of Wittenberg. Now some of the most important 
states of Europe had renounced their connection with 
Rome, and openly embraced his doctrines ; nor was the 
utmost vigilance of the still Catholic governments sufficient 
to exclude the influence. Under the name of Protestant- 
ism, a vast religious and political organization, full of 
youthful energy and sustained by the convictions of the 
people, disputed with the Papacy for the control of 
Christendom. 

It cannot be doubted that Sir Thomas More had desired 
reforms in the church. He may even have regretted, 
that the social and religious system of Christendom had 
not been originally constructed on more equitable princi- 
ples. He was willing, we may believe, that various faiths 
should be tolerated, under strict subordinancy to the state 
religion. But a Reformation like that which he now saw 
sweeping over Europe, and invading England, was not 
what he had wished. Like Erasmus, he was terrified at the 
storm which he had himself helped to raise, and would fain 
unsay the spell and exorcise the unruly elements into their 
ancient peace. 

To this was added another consideration. The popu- 
lar agitations which followed the establishment of Protest- 
antism in Germany, were ascribed by Catholics, no doubt 
by many very sincerely, to the influence of the new reli- 
gion ; which, by removing the old restraints, and inculcat- 
ing freedom of conscience and freedom of thought among 
all classes, had implanted in the lower orders the spirit of 
misrule and discontent, to end in tumult, insurrection and 
revolution. 

It was under the lively apprehension of similar results 
in England, that the cautious statesman entered the lists 



186 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

as the champion of the ancient faith. He could not, or 
would not, understand that Tyndale and his fellow reform- 
ers had no connexion with Luther, and sought no political 
ends. Nor was this, in truth, a matter of much conse- 
quence. He saw in their fundamental principles causes 
which must work out, substantially, the same effects, and 
which, while undermining the old fabric of religion, 
could not but endanger the secular government with which 
it was so vitally connected. He fancied England already 
in a blaze with the incendiary fires of Lutherans, lawless- 
ness and riot everywhere in the ascendant, and all the 
goodly framework of society which it had taken centuries 
to build up, involved in general ruin. Much in the exist- 
ing institutions might be unjust and oppressive ; but no 
settled order of things could, in his view, be so bad as a 
revolution. 

But the mainspring of his zeal, the motive which fur- 
nished its most powerful impulse, and dipt his pen in gall 
and wormwood, is to be found in something more personal 
to himself, namely, in his own inward religious history. 
The distinguishing doctrine of the 'Reformation, J ustijlca- 
tion by faith alone, was the object of his deepest aversion. 
With all his intelligence, Sir Thomas More could not rise 
above the belief, that the hair shirt which he wore next his 
skin, the frequent fastings, vigils, and flagellations with 
which he afflicted his body, were offerings acceptable to 
the God of love. The strong religious tendencies, which 
early in life had inspired the wish to become a monk,* and 
the deep conviction of his own infirmities which had led 
him to relinquish it as a matter of conscience, had only 
strengthened with years. To stand well in the sight of 

*Rudhart, ch, 9. 



THE REFORMER TRANSFORMJED. 187 

God, and, as the necessary means thereto, to train his sin- 
ful nature into entire subjection to the divine law, was un- 
doubtedly the first object of his life. But the unconscious 
pride,, which led him to reject the unbought righteousness 
of Christ as the full expiation for sin, made him the 
bond slave of superstition. He clung to the church which 
promised him heaven as the reward of his deeds, with all 
the tenacity of the Pharisee to his ancient ritual. The 
faith which took its starting-point from the opposite prin- 
ciple, he hated with an intensity proportioned to the vio- 
lence of the conflict in his own bosom. A more striking 
parallel to the early history of Paul can scarcely be found, 
than is furnished in the religious career of this great man. 
Both, striving with all the earnestness of high and power- 
ful natures, to win heaven by fulfilling ^^ every jot and tittle 
of the law," became, through that very aim, the bitterest 
persecutors of those who brought glad tidings of grace and 
truth to man. Among all those who pursued, to prison and 
to death, the flock of Christ in England, in the 16th cen- 
tury. Sir Thomas More must be allowed the first place in 
cruel and unrelenting intolerance ; and the cause is, in 
part at least, that in him as in Saul of Tarsus, a nobler 
character was perverted, by false doctrine and party zeal, 
into a tool of bigotry and despotism. Certainly it would 
be hard to find a more lamentable exhibition of their cor- 
rupting influence, than this controversy with Tyndale. We 
cannot but believe, many times, that his furious exaspera- 
tion of manner is due as much to the convictions on which 
he is obliged to trample, as to a sincere zeal for the cause he 
advocates; while, ever and anon, in the midst of serious argu- 
ment, there gleams out a reckless mocking spirit, between 
profanity and jest, which makes us doubt whether he has 



188 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

not, in the process, undermined his own confidence in all reli- 
gion ; and, if his faith has survived, whether he has not lost 
his honesty. To such a height of absurdity does he some 
times rise, that it is impossible not to feel, that he is la^ughing 
at the arguments with which he is seeking to convince the 
undiscerning rabble. Worse than all is the debased moral 
tone of these writings, — the ridiculous tales, indecent jests, 
and Billingsgate abuse which deform his pages, — indicat- 
ing far more the design to win the people to his party by 
catering to their degraded tastes, than to infuse into them 
the elevating influences of truth and virtue. Well did he 
deserve the rebuke of Tyndale, who, in his reply to the 
*^ Dyaloge," makes the single remark on one chapter of un- 
mitigated grossness : " This chapter is ivorthy of the au- 
thor a7id of his worshipful doctrine?'^ In noble contrast 
stand Tyndale's own writings for the people ; whose pure, 
honest, earnest pages are suflScient witness that their author 
sought to gain his readers for no party, but to restore the 
reign of God, the dominion of holiness and of the love of 
Christ in their hearts. 

License to read the books of Tyndale, for the purpose 
of refuting them, was granted to Sir Thomas More by the 
Bishop of London,* in March, 1528; but the first division 
of his work did not appear till the summer of the follow- 
ing year, though he had, as he informs the reader, labored 
at it " night and day." It was a folio of two hundred 
and fifty pages, the title of which was set forth, with all 
due pomp and circumstance, as follows : " A Dyaloge of 
Syr Thomas More, Knyghte : One of the Counsaill of our 

* What a picture of the montal bondage in which England was then held, 
is disclosed by this single fact. A man like Sir Thomas More, obliged to 
ask leave of the bishop to road the works of Tyndale ! 



THE REFORMER TRANSFORMED. 189 

Sovereign Lord the Kinge, and Chancelloure of his Duchy 
of Lancaster. Wherein be treated divers matters, as of 
the veneracyon and worship of images and reliques, pray- 
ing to sayntes and goyinge on pilgrimage. Wyth many 
other thynges touching the pestylente secte of Luther and 
Tyndale, by the tone, begun in Saxony, and by the tother 
labored to be brought into England. ' The controversy 
extended through the years 1529-1533. Sir Thomas 
Morels part filled several folio volumes. A considerable 
portion of it appeared under the imposing name of the 
*^ Chancelloure of England;" to the remainder he dedi- 
cated the year which followed his resignation of the G-reat 
Seal. Besides the works directed against Tyndale by 
name, the " Supplication of Soules," in reply to Fyshe's 
Supplication of Beggars ; the ^^ Confutation of frere 
Barnes Church;" the answer to Frythe on the '' Sacrament 
of the Altar;" and others which likewise came from his 
busy pen during this period, belong to the same general 
subject, and together, form a very complete view of the 
doctrines and policy of the Romish church, by one of its 
ablest defenders. 

These English writings, it should be borne in mind, 
were for the people, and were intended to counteract those 
of Tyndale and his fellow-reformers. What then was the 
process by which the end was sought ; and what, if suc- 
cessful, must have been the influence on the condition and 
prospects of the English people ? 

The fundamental principle of the new advocate, with 
which his whole theory stood or fell, was the infallibility 
of the church of Eome — The most holy Catholic church 
CANNOT ERR. How is this provcd ? Primarily, by Scrip- 
ture, which, in this point, is supreme and absolute author- 



190 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

ity. Christ promised Peter, that his faith should not fail. 
But Peter's faith did fail ; therefore, this must have been 
addressed to him, not as an individual, but as the repre- 
sentative Head of the church ; since otherwise, Christ is 
made untrue to his word. Likewise to all his Apostles, 
as the representatives of the church, he promised that the 
Holy Ghost should be with them and in them ; " the Com- 
forter shall teach you all things ;" " he that heareth you, 
heareth me, and he that despiseth jou, despiseth me ; and 
lo ! I am with you alway, even to the end of the world !" 
And Paul also directed, that if any would not hear the 
church, he should be accounted a heathen man and a pub- 
lican. — But what church is this, and how is it to be known? 
" It is," says More " the common known body of all Chris- 
tian realms remaining in the faith of Christ, not fallen off, 
nor cut off with heresies." '* The very church of Christ 
here in earth, which hath the right faith, and which we be 
bounden to believe and obey, is this universal known peo- 
ple of all Christian nations, that be neither put out, nor 
openly departed out, by their willful schisms and plainly 
professed heresies." " The Catholic church is God's per- 
petual apostle, however nations soever fall therefrom, and 
how little and small soever it be left." " I said, and yet 
say, that these words of our Saviour Christ, ^ Whoso so 
heareth you, heareth me,' were no more proper commandment 
to bind any man to believe the apostles, than to believe the 
whole Catholic church, and general councils that represent 
that whole body of the Catholic church, and that they were 
not spoken to the apostles only, no more than the Holy Ghost 
was promised to be sent to the apostles only."* — That this is 
the apostolic, and therefore infallible church, is proved by 
* Confutation, p. 504. 



THE REFORMER TRANSFORMED. 191 

miracles which God has wrought through her, from the time 
of Christ down to the present. " And this is, therefore, the 
way that God hath taken from the beginning ; that is to 
wit, he hath joined his word with wonderful works, to 
make his word perceived for his own. Thus did he, in 
every age before the coming of Christ. Thus did he in 
Christ himself, whose words he proved by his wonderful 
works. . . . Thus did he also by his blessed apostles, whose 
doctrines he confirmed by miracles. And thus hath he 
done ever since."* " And now, in such things as God 
seeth most need, and the hereticks most busy to assault, 
there doth he most specially fence in his church with mira- 
cles He hath wrought, and daily doth many wonder- 
ful miracles, and the like of those that he wrought in the 
time of his apostles, to shew and make proof that his 
Catholic church is his perpetual apostle, how many nations 
soever fall therefrom, and how small soever it be left."! — 
" Our Saviour saith that his own miracles passed all that 
had been before, and that yet his apostles and disciples 
and faithful-believing folk should do as great and greater. 
And we see in the Catholic church, God hath done, and 
daily doth for his saints ... as great miracles in confirma- 
tion of our faith in that behalf, as ever he did in the time 
of the apostles. The false churches of heretics do no 
miracle. . . . But God worketh his miracles in his true 
church, to shew his true church, that is to wit, his true 
apostle."! — The genuineness of these modern miracles, on 
which so much is made to depend, is argued through seve- 
ral chapters of the Dialogue, in a manner which, for the 
credit of the distinguished author's sincerity, we trust was 
more satisfactory to him than it is to his readers at the 
* Confutation of Tyndale, p. 504. f Confutation, p. 449. J Ibid. 



192 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

present day. The instances which he adduces, make a 
heavy draught on our faith in his honesty. One of these, 
to which he professes to have been an eye-witness, must 
suffice as a specimen : 

" And myself saw, at the Abbey of Barking, beside Lon- 
don, to my remembrance about thirty years past, in the 
setting an old image in a new tabernacle, the back of which 
image being painted over, and of long time before laid 
with beaten gold, happened to crack in one place, and out 
there fell a pretty little door, at which fell out, also, many 
relics, that had lien unknown in that image Grod wot how 
long. And as long had been likely to be again, if God 
by that chance had not brought them to light. The 
Bishop of London then came thither to see there were no 
deceit therein. And I, among others, was present there 
while he looked thereon and examined the matter. And 
in good faith, it was a marvel to me to behold the manner 
of it. I have forgotten much thereof, but I remember a 
little piece of wood there was, rudely shaped in cross, with 
thread wrapped about it. Writing had it none, aud what 
it was we could not tell ; but it seemed as newly cut as if 
it had been done within one day before I And divers relics 
had old writings on them, and some had none. But among 
other, were certain small kerchiefs which were named there 
Our Lady's, and of her own working. Coarse were they 
not, nor were they not large, but served as it seemed, to 
' cast in a plain and simple manner on her head. But sure- 
ly they were as clean seams to my seeming as ever I saw 
in my life, and were therewith as white, for all the long 
lying, as if tJiey had been washed arid laid up within one 
hour ! And how long that image had stood in that old 
tabernacle, that could no man tell ; but there had, in all 



THE REFORMER TRANSFORMED. 193 

the church, none as they thought stood longer untouched. 
And they guessed, that four or five hundred years ago, the 
image was hidden when the abbey was burned by infidels, 
and those relics hidden therein ; afterward, the image was 
found and set up many years after, when they were gone 
that hid it. And so the relics remained unknown therein, 
till now that God gave that chance that opened it."* 

That this is the true church, is attested also by the 
common consent of the " old holy doctors," who, having 
proved their saintship by indubitable miracles, testify in 
their writings that this is the very true church. ^^ The 
miracles and consent of these holy doctors, do prove that 
this must needs be the very true church in which they have 
written, and their miracles have been done." 

The essential point being satisfactorily established — that 
the Catholic church is the true church, which being con- 
tinually pervaded by the fullness of divine influence^ cannot 
err — the way is prepared for exalting her teachings above 
those of the written Word. Provision is thus made for 
all those doctrines and usages in the church, which are not 
commanded by Scripture ; or are, by all ordinary rules 
of interpretation, even in direct contrariety to it. By es- 
tablishing the authority of the church, it has made itself 
superfluous. The unwritten word — that is, the traditions 
taught by the apostles, and handed down from age to age, 
and the new teachings of the church itself in successive 
periods, through her general councils — are of equal autho- 
rity with the written word. Several of these he enumer- 
ates, in a passage of the '^ Confutation," as follows : 

^' By these traditions have we the praying to saints, and 
the knowledge that they pray for us. By these traditions 

* Dyalogue, p. 192. 
9 



194 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

have we the holy Lenten fast. . . . By these have we also 
the Saturday changed into Sunday. . . . By these have we 
the hallowing of chalices, vestments, paschal taper, and 
holy water, with divers other things. By these traditiotis 
of that Holy Spirit, hath the church also the knowledge 
how to consecrate, how to say mass, and what thing to 
pray for and to desire therein. By this have we also the 
knowledge to do reverence to the images of holy saints, 
and of our Saviour, and to creep to his cross, and to do 
divine honor unto the blessed sacrament of the altar." 
And these are things not merely true in themselves ; the 
belief of them is necessary to salvation. For if the church, 
in teaching the worship of saints, of images, relics, and the 
host, teaches what is false, she teaches damnable idolatry ; 
to disbelieve it, therefore, if true, is damnable error and 
heresy. To judge from the earnestness with which he 
contends for these '^ unwritten verities," they were of far 
more moment in his eyes than those revealed in Scripture. 
Such frantic zeal in defence of the worship of saints and 
relics, can hardly be accounted for in such a man, except 
on the supposition that he saw in these the stronghold of 
the church with the populace. So anxious was he to pre- 
sent the holy fabric without a flaw to the common eye, as 
to defend the superstition of praying to St. Loy for sick 
horses, and St. Appoline in the toothache, and St. Sythe 
for lost keys; and of the offering by discontented wives of 
a peck of oats to St. Wilgefort, to rid them of their hus- 
bands — hence, called by them St. Uncumber. He gravely 
accounts also for the fact, that the head of John the Bap- 
tist is enshrined in more than one place, and in general, 
that the bones of the saints are so singularly multiplied in 
Christendom ; and proves, that under the inspired guar- 



THE REFORMER TRANSFORMED. 195 

dianship of the church, there can be no serious mistake 
Nay, so meritorious and so necessary is the reverence of 
relics, that if, by chance, a pig's bones were worshiped as 
those of a saint, the service would be far more acceptable 
to Grod, than the profane rejection of the whole doctrine 
by heretics.* 

But how, if these teachings seem to contradict the plain 
language of the Scriptures ? The remedy is easy. The 
church which cannot err, is the constituted expounder of 
the written word. ^' She has the assistance of God and the 
Holy Ghost. For else might the church be most easily 
beguiled in the very receiving of Scripture, wherein they 
take outwardly but the testimony of men from mouth to 
mouth, and hand to hand, without other examination. 
But that secret means that inclineth their credulity to con- 
sent in the believing all in one point, which is the secret 
instinct of God^ this is the sure mean that never can, in 
any necessary point, fail in Christ's church." '^ Worst of 
all wretches shall he walk, who cometh to the Scripture 
of God, to try whether the church believe right or not. 
For either doubteth he whether Christ teach his church 
true, or whether Christ teacheth it at all or not. And 
then he doubteth whether Christ, in his words, said true, 
when he said he would be with his church to the end of 
the world." 

He particularly cautions theological students against 
the dangerous practice, to which so many of them were 
then inclined, of " giving themselves to the study of Scrip- 
ture alone, with contempt of logic and other secular sciences, 
and little regard to the old interpreters;" and tells a sad 
story of some who had thus come to a very bad end. '' For 

* Dialogue, 2d Book. 



196 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the sure avoiding whereof," he continues, " my poor advice 
were, in the study thereof, to have a special regard to the 
writings and comments of the old holy fathers. And yet, 
or he fall in hand with the one or the other, next to 
grace and help of God to be got with abstinence and 
prayer and clean living, afore all things were it necessary 
to come well and surely instructed in all such points and 
articles as the church believeth." " Finally, if all he can 
find in other men's works, or invent by God's aid of his | 
own study, cannot suffice to satisfy, but that any text yet ' 
seem contrary to any point of the church's faith and be- 
lief, let him then, as St. Augustine saith, make himself 
very sure that there is some fault, either in the translator 
or in the writer, [copyist,] or now-a-days in the printer ; 
or finally, that for some let or other, he understandeth it 
not aright. And so let him reverently knowledge his ig- 
norance, lean and cleave to the faith of the church as an 
undoubted truth, leaving that text to be better perceived, 
when it shall please our Lord, with his light, to reveal and 
disclose it." 



CHAPTER VII. 



SHALL THE PEOPLE HAVE THE BIBLE ? 

But the central point of interest in this controversy, was 
the subject of vernacular translations of the Bible. Of 
these the Lord Chancellor professed himself a warm advo- 
cate. Nothing, in his view, could so conduce to the growth 
of piety and good morals among the people, as the Holy 
Scriptures faithfully translated into their mother tongue. 
To argue against this was to reflect on " the holy writers 
that wrote the Scripture in the Hebrew tongue, and 
against the blessed evangelists that wrote the Scripture in 
Greek, and against all those in likewise that translated it 
out of every of those tongues into Latin ; " for these were 
all written in what was, at the time, the vulgar tongue. 
To deny it to the unlearned in English, required also that 
it should be denied in the Latin to the laity and to the 
great body of the priesthood also, who were as incompe- 
tent to understand " hard and doubtful texts " in the vul- 
gate, as the very women to do so in their own language. 
Nor did the objection that many would abuse the privi- 
lege to their own destruction, seem to him a suj0&cient rea- 
son for withholding it from all. " If any good thing will 
go forward, somewhat," he says, *' must be adventured." 



198 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

** To keep the whole commodity from any whole people, be- 
cause of harm that by their own folly and fault may come 
to some part, were as though a lewd surgeon would cut off 
the leg by the knee, to keep the toe from the gout, or cut 
off a man's head by the shoulders to keep him from the 
toothache." ^' I would not, for my mind, withhold the 
profit that any one good, devout, unlearned lay man might 
take by the reading, not for the harm that an hundred her- 
etics would fall in by their own wilful abusion."* 

In regard to the principle of the things it appears, there- 
fore, that Sir Thomas was entirely one with the Reformers. 
He could illustrate it as forcibly, and plead for it as ear- 
nestly, as the most zealous of them all. The only differ- 
ence between them, was on the practical application of the 
principle in which he and they alike were agreed. 

When we come to the practical application, however, 
this difference is found to be a somewhat serious matter, in- 
volving no less than the whole question : ^' Shall the peo- 
ple HAVE the Bible?" 

In the first place, though Sir Thomas More was fully in 
favor of the Bible for the people, it was not as a matter of 
necessity, nor as their right. Nor did he plead for the 
whole Bible to be given to the whole people. Who should 
receive it, and how much, was at the discretion of their 
spiritual guides. He proposes the following plan for obvi- 
ating the mischief apprehended by many learned and pious 
prelates, from the Scriptures in the mother tongue. *' Let 
a translation be made by bome good Catholic and well- 
learncd man, or by divers dividing the labor among them, 
and the work then allowed and approved by the ordinaries, 
and by their authority put to print, all the copies then to 
* Dialogue, 3d Book. 



SHALL THE PEOPLE HAVE THE BTBLE ? 199 

come whole into the bishop's hands, which he may, after 
his discretion and wisdom, deliver to such as he perceiveth 
honest, sad, and virtuous, with a good monition and fath- 
erly counsel to use it reverently, with humble heart and 
lowly mind, rather seeking therein occasion of devotion 
than despicion. And providing as much as may be that 
the book be, after the decease of the party, brought again 
and reverently restored unto the ordinary. So that, as 
near as may be devised, no man have it but of the ordina- 
ries' hands, and by him thought and reputed for such as 
shall be likely to use it for God's glory and the merit of 
his own soul. Among whom, if any be proved after to 
have abused it, the use thereof to be forbidden him either 
forever, or till he wax wiser." ^' Though it were not taken 
to every lewd lad in his own hands, to read a little rudely 
when he list, and then cast the book at his heels, or among 
other such as himself to keep a quodlibet or a pot parlia- 
ment upon, I trow there will no wise man find a fault there- 
in." '' Though it may, therefore, [on account of the pres- 
ence of the Holy Spirit in the church] be the better suf- 
fered that no part of Scripture were kept out of honest lay- 
men's hands, yet would I that no part thereof should come 
into theirs, which, to their own harm, and haply their 
neighbor's too, would handle it over homely, and be too 
bold and busy therewith. And although Holy Scripture 
be a medicine for the sick and food for him that is whole ; 
yet, since there is many a body sore and soul-sick that 
taketh himself for whole, and in Holy Scripture is a whole 
feast of so much divers viand, that after the afi*ection and 
state of sundry stomachs, one may take harm by that self 
same that shall do another good, and sick folk often have 
such a corrupt tallage in their taste that they most like 



200 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the meat that is most unwholesome for them, it were not, 
therefore, as me thinketh, unreasonable that the ordinary, 
whom God hath, in the dioceses, appointed for the chief 
physician to discern between the whole and the sick, and 
between disease and disease, should after his wisdom and 
discretion, appoint everybody their part as he should per- 
ceive to be good and wholesome for them. And, therefore, 
as he should not fail to find many a man to whom he 
might commit all the whole ; so, to say the truth, I can 
see no harm therein, though he should commit unto some 
men the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, or Luke; whom he 
should yet forbid the Gospel of John ; and suffer some to 
read the Acts of the Apostles whom he wOuld not suffer to 
meddle with the Apocalypse. Many were there, I think, 
should take much profit by St. Paul's Epistle ad Ephc- 
sioSj and yet should find little fruit for their understanding 
in the Epistle ad Ro7nanos. And in likewise would it 
be in divers other parts of the Bible as well in the Old 
Testament as in the New ; so that I say, though the bishop 
might, unto some lay men, betake and commit, with good 
advice and instruction, the whole Bible to read ; yet might 
he to some man well and with reason restrain the reading of 
some part, and from some busy-body, the meddling with any 
part at all, more than he shall hear in sermons set out and 
declared unto him ; and in likewise to take away the Bible 
from such folk again as be proved by their blind presump- 
tion to abuse the occasion of their profit unto their own 
hurt and harm." 

At tne conclusion he modestly suggests, with all defer- 
ence to more wise and learned judges, that he would not 
himself fear to try the experiment of permitting the Scrip- 
tures to go freely among the people. But as the contro- 



SHALL THE PEOPLE HAVE THE BIBLE? 201 

versy progressed, not so much to his own credit as had been 
anticipated, he seems to have grown much more dubious 
on this point. In the '^ Confutation," written two or three 
years later, 1532, he argues against having the church ser- 
vice in English, *^ which," he says, " what it would do here 
God knoweth !. But as for Allmain (Germany), there as it 
is so already, we see well enough that it doeth no great 
good there." In the ^^ Apology," written in 1533, he 
seems quite weaned from the plan which had once been so 
near his heart. ^' The people," he asserts, ^^ may have 
every necessary truth of Scripture, and everything neces- 
sary for them to know concerning the salvation of their 
souls, truly taught and preached unto them ; though the 
corps and body of the Scripture be not translated unto them 
in their mother tongue. For else had it been wrong with 
English people, from the faith first brought into this realm 
unto our own day, in all which time before, I am sure that 
every English man and woman that could read it, had not 
a book by them of the Scripture in English. And yet is 
there, I doubt not, of those folk many a good soul saved. 
And secondly also, if the having of the Scripture in Eng- 
lish be a thing so requisite, of precise necessity, that the 
people's souls should needs perish but if they have it trans- 
lated into their own tongue ; then must the most part per- 
ish for all that, except the preacher make farther provision 
beside, that all the people shall be able to read it when they 
have it, of which people far more than four parts of all the 
whole divided into ten could never read English yet, and 
many now too old to begin to go to school, and shall, with 
God's grace, though they read never word of Scripture, 

come to heaven as well Many have thought it a 

thing very good and profitable that the Scripture, well and 



202 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

truly translated, should be in the English tongue. And 
albeit that many right wise and well learned both, and 
very virtuous folk also, both have been and yet are in a far 
other mind ; yet for mine own part, I both have been, and 
yet am also of the same opinion still, as I have in my Di- 
alogue declared, if the men were amended and the time 
meet therefor ! " 

In the second place, there seemed to be insuperable diffi- 
culties in the way of obtaining such a translation, as might 
safely be trusted in the people's hands. There was a tra- 
dition of an ancient orthodox version made before Wick- 
liffe's ;* but where to find it, or how to distinguish it from 

* In reference to this alleged version, Tyndale replies: "What may 
not Mr. More say by authority of his poetry 7 There is a lawful translation 
that no man knoweth, which is as much as no lawful translation ! Why 
might not the bishops show which were that lawful translation, and let it be 
printed ? Nay, if that might have been obtained of them with large money, it 
had been printed, ye may be sure, long ere this. But, Sir, answer me 
hereunto ; how happeneth that ye defenders translate not one yourselves to 
cease the murmur of the people, and put to your own glosses, to prevent 
heretics? I'ou would no doubt have done it, long since, if ye could have 
made your glosses agree with the text in everyplace" He adds a serious 
charge against Sir Thomas More's sincerity. " And what can you say to 
this, how that besides they have done their best to disannul all translating 
by parliament, they have disputed before the king's grace that it is perilous 
and not meet, and so concluded that it shall not be, under a pretence of de- 
ferring it for certain years ; where Mr. More was their special orator, to 
feign lies for their purpose." Ans. to Sir Thomas Morels Dialogue^ Vol. 
II, p. 175. This is, without doubt, the interview mentioned by More him- 
aelf (Confutation, p. 422) : *' The king's highness, and not with out the coun- 
cil and advice, not of his nobles only with other counsellors attending 
on his grace's person, [most of them ecclesiastics,] but also of right virtuous 
and special right well learned men of either university, and other parties of 
the realm specially called thereunto, hath, after diligent and long consideration 
had therein, been fain,ybr theuhUe^ to prohibit the Scripture of God to bo 
Buflfered in English tongue among the people's hands." 



SHALL THE PEOPLE HAVE THE BIBLE ? 203 

that seditious and prohibited translation, no man could 
tell. When moreover, the pious Chancellor reflects, that 
all through these two hundred years, during which the 
holy Catholic church has possessed so many learned and 
virtuous doctors, not one of them has been moved by the 
Holy Spirit to undertake this work, he begins to be in doubt 
whether the wishes he has indulged are in harmony with 
the will of God. Heretics, alone, seemed to have their 
minds inclined to Bible translation. A New Testament, 
translated out of the original Grreek into clear and vigor- 
ous Eoglish, had already appeared, and had commended 
itself widely to the popular mind. It was the first effort 
of the kind by an English scholar ; and, as a literary work, 
might well have been an object of pride to English schol- 
ars. But, as the work of a heretic, it must be prohibited ; 
and wherever found, burned to ashes by the faithful guar- 
dians of the flock. Better far that the people should never 
have a Bible, than receive it from this poisoned source ! 

But, unfortunately, the notion had gone abroad among 
the people, that these measures were attributable rather to 
personal and selfish considerations, than to any concern for 
their welfare. 

'^The visible contrariety between that book and the 
doctrines of those who handled it," was the popular solu- 
tion of their zeal for its suppression ; an opinion which 
did not tend to lessen their eagerness to read it, or their 
prejudices against the clergy. To counteract this impres- 
sion, and to persuade the people to wait patiently till Pro- 
vidence should send them a Bible, prepared by the right 
men on the right principles, More put forth all the power 
of his pen. 



204 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

He begins* with expressing his surprise, " that any 
good Christian man having any drop of wit in his head/' 
'should complain of the burning of Tyndale's New Testa- 
mentf Even to call it the New Testament is a misnomer ; 
since, as he affirms, " Tyndale had, after Luther's counsel, 
so corrupted and changed it from the good and wholesome 
doctrine of Christ, to the devilish heresies of their own, 
that it was clean a contrary thing." " To tell all its faults, 
were in a manner to rehearse all the whole book, wherein 
there were found and noted wrong above a thousand texts 
by tale. To study to find one, were to study where to 
find water in the sea." 

But when he condescends to specify some of these al- 
leged errors, we see that the real gist of the difficulty lies 
within a nutshell. It was Tyndale's principles of transla- 
tion^ as aioplied to certain ecclesiastical terms of the Ro- 
mish churchy which formed the true ground of his condem- 
nation with the Lord Chancellor. Out of the multitude 
of mistranslations, he proposes to mention '' two or three, 
such as every one of the three is more than thrice three in 
one." "The one is this word. Priests ; the other, the 
Church; the third, Charity^'' — translated by Tyndale, 
seniors^ (afterwards changed to elders^) congregation^ love. 
To these he afterwards adds several others — diS, favor for 
grace ; repentance for penance ; knoivledging^ for confess- 
ing. This may, at first, seem mere peevish caviling on the 
part of More ; as Coverdale said, " like a quarrel as to the 
difi"erence between fourpence and a groat." But this is a 
mistaken view. These terms were the very pillars of the 

* Dialogue, 3(1 Book, 8th Chap. 

t This word, as appears from many passsages in More's own writings, had 
the full force of our present form, acknowledging. 



SHALL THE PEOPLE HAVE THE BIBLE ? 205 

hierarchical system. In excludiDg them from his transla- 
tion, Tjndale had effaced from the English New Testa- 
ment every thing to which the Romish clergy could ap- 
peal, in proof of those prerogatives by which they had so 
long lorded it over the minds and consciences of the laity. 
The controversy between More and Tyndale, on these 
points, shows clearly that they both considered them 
vital questions. The Lord Chancellor accuses his oppo- 
nent, over and over, of ^' going about by this means to 
Quake a change inthe faiths ^' Because," says he,* " that 
Luther utterly denieth the very Catholic church in earth, 
and saith that the church of Christ is but an unknown 
congregation of some folk, here two and there three, no 
man wot where, having the right faith, which he calleth 
only his own new forged faith ; therefore Huchyns [Tyn- 
dale] in the New Testament, cannot abide the name of the 
church, but turneth it into the name of congregation; will- 
ing that it should seem to Englishmen, either that Christy 
in the Gospel^ had never spoken of the churchy or else 
that the church were but such a congregation, as they 
might have occasion to say that a congregation of some 
such, heretics were the church that God spake of. — Now, 
as touching the cause why he changed the name of priest 
into senior, ye must understand that Luther and his ad- 
herents hold this heresy, that holy order is nothing, ] And 

* Dyaloge, p. 222. 

t How much importance More attached to this point, is seen from other 
passages, in which he speaks of the nature and eflSicacy of the priestly office. 
" But Tyndale careth not how he set his words, so that he may make us to 
believe, that we need no priest to offer up daily the same sacrifice that our 
Saviour offered once, and hath ordained to be by priests perpetually offered 
in his church." "Now would Tyndale have us for his pleasure, in hatred of the 
order of priesthood, believe that the priest doth at the mass make none offer- 



206 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

that a priest is nothing else but a man chosen among 
the people to preach ; and by that choice to that office, he 
is priest by and by, without any more ado. . . . But as for 
saying Mass, and hearing of confession, and absolution 
thereon to be given ; all this, he saith, that every man, 
woman, and child may do as well as any priest." ^' Ye 
may perceive that he thus used himself in his translation, 
to the intent that he would set forth Luther's heresies and 
his own thereby. For first, he would make the people be- 
lieve that we should believe nothing but plain Scripture, 
in which point he teacheth a plain pestilent heresy. And 

ing of that holy sacrifice for sin. With which heresy he clean taketh away 
the very fruit of the mass, in which that blessed sacrament is Tnost honored 
of ike people, and is also most profitable unto the people." — Ans. to Tynd* 
Preface, p. 392. '' And be a priest never so nought, .... yet this advantage 
take we by the privilege and prerogative of his priesthood, .... that be he 
never so vicious, and therewith so impenitent, and so far from all purpose of 
amendment, that his prayers were afore the face of God rejected and ab- 
horred, yet that sacred sacrifice and sweet oblation of Christ's holy body, 
ofi"ered up by his ofiice, can take none impairing by the filth of his sin, but 
highly helpeth to the upholding of this wretched world, from the vengeance 
and wrath of God, and is to God acceptable, and to us as available for tho 
thing itself, as if it were offered by a better man." — Dyaloge, p. 226. And 
what is the sacrifice which the priest first creates, and then offers ? Let 
More himself answer. It is " that holy, blessed, glorious flesh and blood of 
Almighty God himself, with his celestial soul therein, and with the majesty 
of his eternal godhead." — Treatise on the Passion^ p. 1264. " It is under 
the form and likeness of bread, the very self-same body and the very self- 
same blood, that died and was shed upon the cross for our sin, and the third day 
gloriously did rise again to life, and with the souls of holy saints fetched out 
of hell, ascended and styed [rose] up wonderfully into heaven, and there sitteth 
on tho right hand of the Father, and shall visibly descend in great glory to 
judge the quick and the dead, and reward all men after to their works." — 
lb. 1266. 

It was no false charge that Tyndale, in refusing to recognize this office 
in'the English New Testament, " went about to make a change in the [Ro- 
mish] faith." 



SHALL THE PEOPLE HAVE THE BIBLE? 207 

tlien would he, with his false translation, make the people 
ween farther, that such articles of our faith as he laboreth 
to destroy, and which be well proved by Holy Scripture, 
were in Holy Scriptur.e nothing spoken of; but that the 
preachers have, all this fifteen hundred year, misreported 
the Gospel, and Englished the Scripture wrong, to lead the 
people purposely out of the right way." 

Nor does Tyndale, in his reply to More, treat the moot- 
ed renderings as a matter of indifference. ^' Wherefore," 
he says,* " inasmuch as the clergy (as the nature of those 
hard and indurate adamant stones is to draw all to them,) 
had ajjpropriated unto themselves the term, that of right 
is common to all the whole congregation of them that be- 
lieve in Christ, t and with their false and subtle wiles, had 
beguiled and mocked the people, and brought them into 
ignorance of the word ; making them understand by the 
word church, nothing but the shaven flock of them that 
shore the whole world ; therefore, in the translation of the 
New Testament, where I found this word, ecclesia^ I in- 
terpreted it by this word, congregatioPoP " And that I use 
this word, knowledge^ and not confession ; and this word, 

* Tyndale' s Works, vol. ii., p. 14. 

■f More foolishly cavils at this assertion of Tyndale, as if he had said that 
the laity were in no sense included in the Romish church. But he does not 
attempt to deny or evade, so patent was the fact, that whenever The 
Church was spoken of with the idea of power and authority, the clergy alone 
were included. When the church was said to have decided on a doctrine, or 
a course of policy, or to have performed any high judicial act, it was under- 
stood of them alone ; the laity having no voice in spiritual matters. Through 
their courts, synods, and general councils — subject only to the Pope — they 
could 'at pleasure alter or abolish the laws of Christ, and institute (on pain 
of excommunication, chains and the stake,) new articles of faith for the 
whole body. And this, by virtue of the authority delegated to St. Peter 
and his successors, was the voice of The Church ! 



208 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

repentance^ and not penance. In which all, he cannot 
prove that I give not the right English unto the Greek 
word. But it is a far other thing that paineth them, and 
biteth them by the breasts. There be secret pangs that 
pinch the very hearts of them, whereof they dare not com- 
plain. The sickness that maketh them so impatient is, 
that they have lost their juggling termsy^ " So now the 
causes why our prelates thus rage, and that moveth them 
to call Mr. More to help, is, not that they find just causes 
in the translation, but because they have lost their juggling 
and feigned terms, wherewith Peter prophesied they should 
make merchandize of the people."! 

Now Sir Thomas More did not pretend that Tyndale's 
translation misrepresented, in these points, the original 
meaning of the words used in the G-reek text. His posi- 
tion was this : The sacred writers did indeed, of necessity, 
use for the expression of Christian ideas, w^ords taken from 
common life; but they used them in a peculiar sense. 
Thus the Greek word presbyter os (translated by Tyndale, 
senior, or elder,) meant nothing more than this, until it 
was employed to designate an office in the Christian church, 
to which were attached certain mystical functions and pre- 
rogatives. This mystical Christian idea, is expressed in 
English by the word Priest ; and to substitute for it the 
literal rendering, senior or elder, while it is true to the 
words of Scripture, falsifies its sense. So ecclesia^ which 
meant nothing, originally, but a congregation or assembly, 
of whatever kind, was by them applied to that mystical 
body of Christ, wherein he perpetually resides by his Spi- 
rit, and which is represented in English by the consecrated 

* Tyndale's Works, vol. ii., p. 22. f Ibidj p. 24. 



SHALL THE PEOPLE HAVE THE BIBLE? 209 

word, Church. To translate ecclesia by the secular word, 
congregation, is therefore, to lose the inspired meaning. 

There is certainly something plausible in this view at 
first sight ; but it will not bear the touchstone of the 
foundation-principle of Protestantism, for a single mo- 
ment. Who was to settle the mystical Christian sense of 
the words used by the sacred writers ? Sir Thomas had 
a ready answer, — The Holy Catholic Church which can- 
not err. Once admit that first great tenet, which he had 
so labored to establish, and all his inferences followed with 
the force of logical demonstration. Admit that, and it 
was proved without farther trouble, that a vernacular Bi- 
ble should conform, in the principles of its translation, to 
whatever sense the church, by its doctrines and usages, 
should have put upon the words of inspiration. 

But Tyndale tad an altogether different notion of the 
office of a translator of the Scriptures. No man, and no 
body of men, might stand between him and the Sacred Ora- 
cles, of which he had undertaken to give a faithful reflex- 
ion to his countrymen. " I call God to record," — such is 
his solemn appeal to the Searcher of hearts, — '^ against 
the day we shall appear before the Lord Jesus, to give a 
reckoning of our doings, that I never altered one syllable 
of God's word against my conscience, nor would this day 
if all that is in the earth, whether it be pleasure, honor, 
or riches, might be given me." Having diligently labored 
to ascertain the exact meaning of the sacred original, as it 
spoke to those whom it first addressed, it was his single 
aim to reproduce it in those words of his mother tongue, 
which would give that meaning to the minds of his coun- 
trymen. He asked not whether the word were holy or 
profane. Any word was holy to him which conveyed truly 



210 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

and clearly the mind of the Holy Spirit.* Sir Thomas 
More would have welcomed, at least so he professed, a ver- 
nacular Bible, if so translated as not to put in question 
with the common people the faith and practice of his church. 
This he deemed a greater evil than to deprive them of the 
Scriptures. Tyndale believed that, whatever became of 
that church or any other, God had a right to speak directly 
to the common people, and that the people had a right to 
hear him. It was this belief, and his honest, manly, Chris- 
tian adherence to it, unmoved by fear or favor, which con- 
stituted him God's special messenger to his age, to break 
the iron rule of priestcraft, and to usher in a new epoch of 
soul-liberty and pure religion. 

The persecuting spirit of the anti-Bible principle is well 

* It must be confessed that, in one point, More had his opponent at disad- 
vantage. Why, he asks, does not Tyndale, on his professed principles, 
translate bishop and deacon, names of ecclesiastical ofl&ces, equally with 
presbyter, by their secular equivalents " overseer " and " server." And in 
another passage he sneeringly says, that his translation of "priest" by 
" elder," is just the same as if he should render *' bapiisma " into " wash- 
ing," to make men ween it were no other manner of washing when the 
priest christeneth a child than when a woman washeth a buck of clothes," 
(Confut. 428.) With Tyndale's explicit statement of his view of the oflBces 
of bishop and deacon before us, it is difl&cult to see why he exposed himself to 
the charge of inconsistency by leaving the words untranslated. 

In regard to baptism no explanation is needed ; since it is evident from 
the writings of the time that the word then had but one signification. Thus 
Tyndale : " Tribulation is our right baptism, and is signified by plunging 
into the water J' ^ *' The plunging into the water signifieth, that we die and 
are buried with Christ as concerning the old life of sin which is in Adam. 
And the pulling out again signifieth, that we rise again with Christ in a new 
life."=^ " Ask the people what they understand by their baptism, or wash- 
ing, and thou shalt see that they believe how that the very plunging into the 
water saveth thera."^ "For the plunging into the water, as it betokeneth 
on the ono part that Christ hath washed our souls in his blood " &c, * 

I Works of the Eng. Reformers, vol. 1, p. 174. a ib. 287. ' ib. 310. * ih. 412. 



1 



I 



SHALL THE PEOPLE HAVE THE BIBLE? 211 

illustrated in that of its great cbampion. It being right 
to forbid the Scriptures to the people, it was right also to 
use all such means as might be necessary to prevent their 
obtaining them. It being right to keep the Scriptures out 
of their reach by laws temporal and spiritual, it was right, 
also, to affix such penalties to these laws as would ensure 
obedience. It is really appalling, as one turns over these 
long folios, betokening the author's unwearied interest in 
his theme, to remark, how, from begining to end, they hiss 
and sparkle with the fires of remorseless zealotism. The 
captions to a few chapters of the " Dyaloge " indicate his 
position in regard to the treatment of those who, in this 
great matter, ventured to recognize a higher law than that 
of King Henry, or the Romish Bishops. Chapter thir- 
teenth is headed thus : " The author showeth his opinion 
concerning the burning of heretics, and that it is lawful, 
necessary and well done ; and showeth also that the clergy 

So Frith, in his '• Declaration of Baptism ; " " The sign in baptism is the 
plunging down into the material water and lifting up again, by the which, 
as by an outward badge, we are known to be of that number which profess 
Christ to be their Redeemer and Saviour." ^ " By this we may perceive how 
gross their ignorance is which without discretion, condemn the infants that 
depart out of the world not baptised in our material water. Far if that 
water give no grace, as I have suflficiently proved, why should they condemn 
more before that washing than after 7 ^'^ " A Christian man's life is noth- 
ing more than a continual baptism, which is begun when we are dipped in 
the water."^ " The ceremonies of baptism are easily expressed if thou 
know what the substance of it is, and how the apostles ministered it ; and 
where may we have that better expressed than Acts viii, viz : where Philip 
baptised the Eunuch, chamberlain to the Queen of Candace ? This Eu- 
nuch did acknowledge that Jesus was the Son of God, which is the sign of 
our fiiith, and desired baptism ; and Philip, at the next water they came to, 
washed him in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost."* 

1 V .1 . Ill, p . 284. 2 Works of the Eng. Reformers, 286. 3 ib, 290. * ib. 293. 



212 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

cloth not procure it, but only the good and politic provision 
of the temporalty."* Chapter fourteenth: "The author 
somewhat showeth that the clergy doth no wrong in leav- 
ing heretics to secular hands, though their death follow 
thereon." Chapter fifteenth : " That princes be bound to 
punish heretics, and that fair handling helpeth but little with 
many of them." Chapter eighteenth : *^ The author sheweth 
that in the condemnation of heretics the clergy might law- 
fully do much more sharply than they do ; and that, in 
deed and clearness, doth no more now against heretics than 
the apostle counselleth, and the old holy doctors did." Un- 
der the latter heading he instances the case mentioned in 
the Epistle to the Corinthians, of Hymeneus and Alexander, 
whom Paul had " delivered unto Satan that they might 
learn not to blaspheme." " In which words," says More, 
**we may well learn that St. Paul, as apostle and spiritual 
governor in that country, finding them twain fallen from 
the faith of Christ, .... did cause the devil to torment 
and punish their bodies, which every man may well wit 
was no small pain, and, peradventure, not without death 
also. . . And this bodily punishment did St. Paul, as it 
appeareth, upon heretics ; so if the clergy did unto much 
more blasphemous heretics much more sorrow than St. 
Paul did to them, they should neither do it without good 
cause, nor without great authority and evident example of 

* Thi« dishonest evasion was unworthy of Sir Thomas More. "As 
though," ^ys Tyndale, in his answer, (vol. II, p. 222,) "the Pope had not 
first found the law, and lus though all his preachers babbled not that in every 
eermon, ' Burn these heretics, burn them, for we have no other argument to 
convince them ; ' and as though they compelled not both king and emperor 
to swear that they shall so do ere they crown them ! " It was customary 
for the bishop, when delivering over convicted heretics to the secular mag- 
istrate, bound by his oath of office to burn them at the stake, to intreat that 
ke would do them no harm ! 



SHALL THE PEOPLE HAVE THE BIBLE? 213 

Christ's blessed Apostles. And surely when our Saviour 
himself called such heretics wolves in sheep's clothing, 
.... the prelates of Christ's church rather ought tempo- 
rally to destroy those ravenous wolves, than suffer them 
to worry and devour everlastingly the flock that Christ 
hath committed unto their care." He praises also the 
foresight and piety of those Christian princes who, like 
Henry IV, discerning the tendencies of heresy, not only to 
corrupt the souls of their subjects, but to destroy the 
realm '' with common sedition, insurrection and open war," 
make provision that " the sparkle be well quenched ere it 
be grown." Especially is he unwearied in extolling the 
zeal of that " most faithful, virtuous, and erudite prince," 
Henry VIII, who by his learned books, and particularly 
by his determined opposition to heresy within his own 
realm, has proved himself so eminent a defender of the 
faith. He is filled with loyal indignation against Tyn- 
dale, who, in his " Obedience of a Christian Man," had 
counselled his readers to suffer any wrong to their persons 
or their property, rather than resist the secular power ; a 
Christian man being, he says, *^ even bound to obey tyranny 
if it be not against his faith and the law of God, till Grod 
deliver him thereof." Only where the ruler's law conflicts 
with his conscience and the law of God, then he is bound 
to obey God rather than man, and patiently abide the pen- 
alty. 

This was a tender point with the willful and despotic 
Henry, who claimed to be himself the conscience of his 
kingdom, and More well knew how to touch it. In that 
caveat^ ^^ if it be not against his faith and the law of God^'' 
he could discern the germ of all mischief. ^' They bid the 



214 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

people," Le says,* for a countenance, to be obedient. But 
they say therewith that the laws and precepts of their sov- 
ereign do nothing bind the subjects in their consciences, 
but [unless] the things by them forbidden or commanded, 
were before forbidden or commanded in Scripture. .... 
And thus it is sure that, by their false doctrine, they must, 
if they be believed, bring the people into the secret con- 
tempt and spiritual disobedience and inward hatred of the 
law ; whereof must after follow the outward breach, and 
thereupon outward punishment and peril of rebellion, 
whereby the princes should be driven to sore effusion of 
their subjects' blood, as hath already happened in Almain, 
and of old time in England. " Friar Barnes f in his fran- 
tic book biddeth the people they should rebel in no wise. 
But he biddeth them therewith that for all the king's com- 
mandment, they should not suffer Tyndale's false transla- 
tion to go out of their hands, but die rather than leave it. 
. . . And thus ye see how fain he would glory in the 
people's blood. For he wotteth very well that the king's 
highness will in no wise, nor in no wise may, if he will 
save his own soul, suffer that false translation in the 
hands of unlearned people; which is by an open heretic 
purposely translated false to the destruction of so many 
souls. Now no man doubteth, that Tyndale himself would 
no less were done for the maintenance of his false transla- 
tion of the evangelists, than his evangelical brother Barnes ; 
but that folk should, against the king's proclamations, 
keep still his books, and rather than leave them die in the 
quarrel in defence of his glory. Whereas I did before in 
my Dialogue say, that Luther's books be seditious, as I now 

* Preface to the Confutation, p. 352. 
t The same mentioned in chap. II. 



SHALL THE PEOPLE HAVE THE BIBLE? 215 

say that Tyndale's be too, and moving people to their 
own undoing, to be disobedient and rebellious to their 
sovereigns." 

But many a man can persecute in theory, whose heart 
shrinks from the practical realization of his principles. 
Not so with Sir Thomas More. It is food for his mirth 
to recall the sufferings of those godly men, who had perished 
at the stake for nothing else than their love to God and 
his truth ; against whom he could himself allege nothing 
but their rejection of the dogmas of his church. After a 
garbled account of the trial of one of them, he exclaims, 
** And this lo ! is Sir Thomas Hytton, the devil's 
stinking martyr, of whose burning Tyndale maketh boast."* 
^' I hear also," he continues, " that Tyndale rejoiceth also 
in the burning of Tewskbury ; but I can see no very great 
cause why, but if he reckon it for a great glory that the man 
did abide still by the stake when he was fast bound to it." 
After stating the proofs of Tewksbury's guilt, namely, that 
Wickliffe's Wicket,t one of Luther's books, and Tyndale's 
" Mammon " and " Obedience " were found in his house ; 
he adds that in his opinion, Tewksbury would never have 
become a heretic had Tyndale's ungracious books never 
come into his hands, — " for which the poor wretch lieth 
now in hell and crieth out on him ; and Tyndale, if he do 
not amend in time, he is like to find him, when they come 
together, a hot firebrand burning at his back that all the 
water in the world will not be able to quench." 

We shall have occasion to refer again to these writings 

* Tyndale had aUuded in one of his books to the constancy of this good 
man. 

"f This treatise of the old Reformer, on the Sacrament of the Supper, had 
recently been printed, and was a favorite manual on the subject with the 
pious Christians of the time. 



216 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

by and by ; but it is presumed the reader has had a suffi- 
cient taste of them for the present. Immediately after the 
publication of the ''Dialogue," in the spring of 1529, Sir 
Thomas More left England to represent, conjointly with 
Tunstal and Hackett, the interests of Henry in the royal 
conference, appointed at Cambray, for adjusting the dif- 
ferences between the Emperor and the King of France. 
The result was a treaty between Henry and the Emperor, 
one article of which secured the continuance of their com- 
mercial relations ; the other a mutual pledge to prohibit 
the printing, sale and importation of all Lutheran hooks 
within their respective dominions.* Under this convenient 
term were included, as before mentioned, all books in 
English as well as in other languages, offensive to the 
church of Rome ; and of these Tyndale's New Testament 
stood first on the list. 

This important negotiation being happily concluded, the 
colleagues parted, — Tunstal for Antwerp, to repeat the 
experiment of buying up all the English New Testaments 
in that market ; More for England, — to receive full power 
to put in practice the intolerant principles which he had 
advocated with his pen. 

But the oft repeated challenge of the reformer, thus ex- 
pressed in the Prologue to his translation of the Penta- 
teuch, remained unanswered: ''I submit this work, and 
all other that I have either made or translated, or shall 
in time to come, (if it be God's will that I further labor 
in that harvest,) unto all them that submit themselves un- 
to the word of God, to be corrected by them ; yea, and 
moreover, to be disallowed and also burnt, if it seem wor- 
thy, so that they first 2'>ut forth of their oivn translating 
another that is more correct^ 

* .Anderson's Annal?, Vol. 1. p. 213. 



CHAPTER VIIL 



SIR THOMAS MORE AS CHANCELLOR. 

Soon after Sir Thomas More's return from France, he 
was raised to the dignity of Lord Chancellor of England, 
made vacant by the fall of Wolsey — the highest office in 
the royal gift. The distinction was the greater, from the 
fact that this was the first time, during a hundred years, 
in which it had been bestowed on a layman. This innova- 
tion on long-established usages, would once have been 
hailed as an auspicious omen to the cause of religious tol- 
eration. When clerical chancellors used the office for the 
suppression of free inquiry, it was no more than might 
have been looked for in men whose personal interests 
were at stake ; from a layman, a more liberal view of the 
general interests of the country might naturally be ex- 
pected. 

The result was precisely the reverse. Hitherto the 
government, as such, had taken no active and avowed part 
in persecution at home. The decrees, mandates, secret 
searches, trials of heretics, &c., noticed in the foregoing 
chapters, had emanated from the direct action of the church. 
Now, however, under the administration of the great lay- 
man and commoner, we first see the secular power openly 



218 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

linked with the church in this work, and taking the lead 
as guardian ex officio^ of the religious opinions of the 
realm. His position on this subject was significantly indi- 
cated in his opening speech as Chancellor ; as also in the 
articles of impeachment against Wolsey, presented bj him 
to Henry in the name of the Lords. In one of these, the 
Cardinal is accused of having ^' interfered with the due and 
direct correction of heresies, highly to the danger and peril 
of the whole body and good Christian people of this realm." 
His successor evidently did not intend that his policy 
should be liable to such a charge ; and if we recall the 
course of Wolsey, we shall feel assured that no half-way 
measures were in contemplation. 

The prognostic was soon verified. On the 24th of De- 
cember, 1529, just two months after his induction into 
office, there appeared, ^^ in the name of the King our 
Sovereign Lord," a manifesto, exceeding in the cruelty 
of its provisions all that the bishops had hitherto attempted 
by their own authority. By this " fierce and terrible pro- 
clamation," as Foxe calls it, the civil power bound itself 
to be the right arm of the church in the extirpation of 
heresy. '' The Chancellor, the Treasurer of England^ the 
Justice of the one bench and of the other. Justices of 
Peace, Sherifi's, Mayors, Bailies, and other officers," such 
is its language, " shall make oath, on taking their charge, 
to give their whole power and diligence to put away, and 
make utterly to cease and destroy, all errors and heresies 
commonly called Lollardies. * They shall assist the 

* This name, as Anderson remarks, points to indigenous heresies, identi- 
cal with those of Wickliflfe and his followers ; not to those of foreign origin, 
which were, in distinction, culled Lutheran— though the latter term was often 
applied to both. 



SIR THOMAS MORE AS CHANCELLOR. 219 

Bishops and their Commissaries, shall favor and maintain 
them as often as by them required.'' " The Justices of 
the King's Bench, Justices of Peace and of Assize, shall 
enquire at their sessions of all those that hold errors or 
heresies, and who be their maintainors, the common writers 

of books, and also of their schools, sermons, &c." 

*^ Ofienders to be delivered to the Bishops or Commissa- 
ries, by indenture between them, to be made within ten 
days or sooner, .... to be acquitted or condemned after 
the laws of Holy Church." If convicted, the secular 
power was again to receive them, and without farther trial, 
to carry the sentence of the Bishop into execution. The 
proclamation was especially severe against the writers, 
venders, and readers of heretical books, of which a list 
was given, including ninety-four in Latin, and twenty-four 
in English. At the head stood, what More called '' the 
father of them all,'' the New Testament of Tyndale. 

Yet so little effect had these vigorous measures in coun- 
teracting the mischief, that in the following spring the 
aged Bishop of Norwich complains, in a pathetic appeal to 
the Archbishop, that he is " accumbered by such as keep- 
eth and readeth these erroneous books in English, and 
believe and give credence to the same, and teach others 
that they should do so." " My Lord," he adds, ^' I have 
done that lyeth in me for the suppression of such persons ; 
but it passeth my power or of any spiritual man to do it ;" 
and. he expresses his apprehension that if not speedily 
checked, " they will undo us all." 

But the high powers of church and state, were well aware 
of the alarming aspect of things, and were already prepar- 
ing for a movement which they intended should be deci- 
sive. 



220 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

In the library at Lambeth palace, is preserved an an- 
cient document, bearing date May 28, 1530, which covers 
eight skins of parchment, written on both sides in a very 
fine hand, the record of this combination of the temporal 
and spiritual powers to prop up the falling kingdom of 
darkness, and check the triumphant progress of the word 
of God.* The Lord Chancellor thus describes the im- 
posing ceremonial of its publication : " For I well know 
that the King's highness, which as he for his most faithful 
mind to God, nothing more effectually desireth than the 
maintainance of the true Catholic faith whereof he is, by 
his no more honorable than well-deserved title, Defensor ; 
so nothing more detesteth, than these pestilent books 
that Tyndale and such other send into the realm, to set 
forth their abominable heresies withal ; doth of his blessed 
disposition, of all earthly things abhor the necessity to do 
punishment ; and for that cause hath not only, by his 
most famous erudite books, both in English and in Latin, 
declared his most Catholic purpose and intent, but also, 
by his open proclamations divers times iterate and renewed, 
and finally, in his own most royal person, in the Star Cham- 
ber, most eloquently by his own mouth, in great presence 
of his lords spiritual and temporal, gave monition and 
warning to all justices of peace of every quarter of his 
realm, then assembled before his highness, to be by them 
in all their countries [shires] to all his people declared, 
nnd did prohibit and forbid, upon great pains, the bring- 
ing in, reading, and keeping any of those pernicious, poi- 
soned books, to the intent that every subject of his, by the 
mean of such manifold effectual warning, with his gracious 
remission of their former offence in his commandments 

* Offor's Memoir of Tyndale, p. 54. 



1 



SIR THOMAS MORE AS CHANCELLOR. 221 

before broken, should from thenceforth avoid and eschew 
the peril and danger of punishment, and not drive his 
highness of necessity to the thing from which the mildness 
of his benign nature abhorreth."* 

The instrument commences with a solemn appeal to 
God and all true Christian people, and an explanation of 
the reasons for which it was set forth ; followed by a Bill 
in English, to be published by the preachers in all the 
realm ; and closes with the statement, that his Grace's 
Highness did ^' then and there, in the presence of all the 
personages there assembled, require three Notaries to make 
public and authentic instruments, and set thereunto our 
seal accordingly." 

This great movement had not been resolved on without 
due forethought and preparation. It is stated in the pream- 
ble to the instrument itself, that the King, being informed of 
the alarming spread of heresy in his dominions, through 
books in the English tongue brought from beyond the sea, 
had caused a collection of these to be submitted to ^' his 
council, prelates, and divers learned men of both universi- 
ties, and others, for examination ; who, being thus prepared, 
met for consultation at the palace at Westminster, and 
unanimously resolved, that the said books " do swarm full 
of heresies and detestable opinions." These heresies, some 
two hundred in number, are engrossed at full length on 
the deed; which proceeds to declare, that ^' the books con- 
taining the same, with the translation also of Scripture, 
corrupted by William Tyndale, as well in the Old Testa- 
ment as in the New, the King's highness, with the assent 
of the prelates and universities, has determined utterly to 
be expelled, rejected, and pat away out of the hands of 
* Preface to the Confutation, p. 351. 



222 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

his people. And the King orders all preachers in his 
realm to publish the commands of his highness in a bill, in 
English, to be read in every church and chapel in the king- 
dom during divine service." 

This bill required all the King's subjects, who had in 
possession the books specified, or others of like character, 
henceforth '' to detest them, to abhor them, to keep them 
not in their hands, to deliver them up to the superiors, 
such as call for them. And if any thing of the poison re- 
mained in their minds, they were to forget it, or by informa- 
tion of the truth, expel it." " This," it proceeds, '^ ye ought 
to do ; and being obstinate, the prelates of the church 
ought to compel you; and your Prince to punish and 
correct you, not doing the same." Then follows the King's 
decision in regard to " the Scripture in the vulgar tongue^ 
and in the common people^ s hands^'' which is : " that hav- 
ing of the whole Scripture is not necessary to Christian 
men ; and that the King's highness having advised with 
his council, and other great learned men, thinketh in his 
conscience, that the divulging of the Scripture at this time, 
in the English tongue, to be committed to the people, 
should rather be to their farther confusion and destruction, 
than to the edification of their souls. And it was thought 
there, in that assembly, that the King's highness and the 
Prelates in so doing, not sufi'ering the Scriptures to be di- 
vulged and communicated to the people in the English 
tongue at this time, doth well." 

This action was followed by a royal proclamation, di- 
rected expressly and solely against the works of Tyndale. 
'' The King's subjects are commanded to deliver up all 
such books within fifteen days ; and the judges, justices, 
constables, and all officers, are ordered to seize all who re- 



SIR THOMAS MORE AS CHANCELLOR, 223 

fuse, or are suspected of possessing them, and bring them 
before the King and his council, that they may be corrected 
and punished for their contempt, to the terrible example 
of other transgressors." It decrees moreover, that the 
Scriptures in English " are books of heresy^ and shall be 
clearly exterminated and exiled out of this realm of Eng- 
land forever." 

These formidable manifestos received an appropriate 
seal and confirmation at the hands of Bishop Tunstal, the 
friend and confidant of the Lord Chancellor, in a second 
great Bible-burning at Paul's cross. The story of the Bi- 
bles used for this purpose has been often repeated, and its 
truth, in substance, is beyond a doubt. 

Bishop Tunstal, it will be recollected, had proceeded 
from Cambray to Antwerp, for the purpose of getting pos- 
session of the English Bibles then in that market. Foxe* 
thus relates the process by which he accomplished his 
object : 

^' Here it is to be remembered, that at this present time, 
one Augustine Packington, a mercer and merchant of 
London, the same time was in Antwerp, wl ere the Bishop 
then was ; and this Packington was a man that highly fa- 
vored Tyndale, but to the Bishop showed the contrary. 
The Bishop, desirous of having his purpose brought to 
pass, communed of the New Testaments, and how gladly 
he would buy them. Packington then hearing him say 
so, said : ^ My Lord, if it be your pleasure, I can in this 
matter do more, I dare say, than most of the merchants 
of England that are here, for I know the Dutchmen (i. e. 
Germans) and strangers that have bought them of Tyndale, 
and have them here to sell ; so that if it be your Lord- 
* Anderson, vol. 1, p. 214. 



224 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

ship's pleasure to pay for them — for otherwise I cannot 
come by them, but I must disburse money for them — I will 
then assure you to have every book of them that is im- 
printed, and is here unsold.' The Bishop said : ^ Gentle 
Mr. Packington, do your diligence and get them ; and with 
all my heart I will pay for them, whatever they cost you ; 
for the books are erroneous and naught, and I intend sure- 
ly to destroy them all^ and to burn them at Paul's Cross.' 
Augustine Packington then came to Tyndale, and said : 
* William, I know thou art a poor man, and hast a heap 
of New Testaments and books by thee, for which thou hast 
both endangered thy friends and beggared thyself, and I 
have now gotten thee a merchant, which, with ready money, 
shall dispatch thee of all that thou hast, if you think it 
profitable to yourself.' * Who is the merchant?' said Tyndale. 
' The Bishop of London,' said Packington. ^ 0, that is be- 
cause he will burn them,' said Tyndale. ^ Yes,' quoth Pack- 
ington. ' I am the gladder,' said Tyndale, ^ for these two 
benefits shall come thereof: I shall get money to bring 
myself out of debt, and the whole world will cry out against 
the burning of God's word ; and the overplus of the money 
that shall remain to me, shall make me more studious to 
correct the said New Testament, and so newly to imprint 
the same again ; and I trust the second will much better 
like [please] you than ever did the first.' So, forward 
went the bargain : the Bishop had the books, Packington 
had the thanks, and Tyndale had the money."* 

* Tyndale's conduct, as thus represented by Foxe, has been objected to, 
as not strictly in accordance with that "simplicity and godly sincerity" which 
usually characterized him. It is very certain that ho could never have ori- 
ginated or managed such a negotiation ; but one can imagine him smiling 
in grave humor, to see the wily enemy of truth thus circumvent himself. 
It was a bona fide sale ; the Bishop had for his money just what he wanted 



SIR THOMAS MORE AS CHANCELLOR. 225 

These were the volumes now brought forth to signalize, 
by a bonfire of Bibles, the recent renewal of the marriage 
covenant between the state and the church. In the words 
of Anderson, " The Clergy and the Star Chamber were now 
in perfect harmony." 

But lest there should be any doubt whether he were in- 
deed the leader in these measures, the Lord Chancellor 
has made a record on the subject with his own pen. In 
the preface to the Confutation, (published in 1532^ the 
third year of his chancellorship,) immediately after the pas- 
sage quoted on p. 220, he adds : '^ Now seeing the King's 
gracious purpose in this point, I reckon that, being his un- 
worthy Chancellor, it appertaineth, as I said, unto my 
part and duty, to follow the example of his noble grace, 
and after my poor wit and learning, with opening to his 
people the malice and poison of these pernicious books, to 
help as much as in me is, that his people, abandoning the 
contagion of all such pestilent writing, may be far from in- 
fection, and thereby from all such punishment, as follow- 
ing thereupon, doth oftentimes rather serve to make other 
beware that are yet clear, than to cure and heal well those 
that are already infected ; so hard is that carbuncle catch- 
ing once a core, to be by any man well and surely cured. 
Howbeit, God so worketh, that sometime it is. Toward 
the help whereof, or if it haply be incurable, then to the 
clean cutting out that part for infection of the remnant, 
a7n I by mine office in virtue of my oaih^ and every officer 

— only Tyndale turned the bargain from his bad intent to the good one of 
perfecting and multiplying the English Bible. He attached no such sa- 
credness to a translation of the Scriptures, as to flinch from its destruction, 
when this was to be the means of furnishing one nearer to the inspired 
riginal. 

10* 



226 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

of justice through the realm for his rate^ right especially 
hounden^ not in reason only and good congruence, but also 
by plain obedience and statute." 

During his whole administration, the fury of religious 
persecution never relaxed. On his hands, not less than on 
the bishops' whose zeal he stimulated, and over whose 
most execrable acts he cast the shield of his mighty influ- 
ence and authority, lies the blood of the martyrs who per- 
ished during the reign of terror. Some were imprisoned, 
loaded with irons, in his own house ; some were whipped, 
some subjected to the torture of the rack, under his per- 
sonal supervision, while his mocking jests insulted the 
agony of his victims. He was, moreover, deeply involved 
in those dastardly intrigues for entrapping Tyndale, which 
ended in the imprisonment and death of this friend of God 
and man. 

It is vain for his eulogists to attempt to wipe out these 
stains upon his memory, by charging Protestant narrators 
with misrepresenting facts. Were there not a line of 
other testimony on record against him, his own writings 
bear witness to principles so infamous and a heart so cruel, 
that they would have consigned any other man to the exe- 
cration of the world. His writings after he retired from 
office, show, if possible, a still more bitter and blood-thirsty 
spirit than while he was in active life. A great scandal 
had come upon the clergy in consequence of their tyrannical 
use of the law ex officio^ by which persons were arrested 
on secret information or mere suspicion of heresy, and in 
secret trial, without being confronted with their accusers, 
were condemned to the severest punishments, even to death 
at the stake, on evidence extorted from themselves by 
cross-examinations, threats and tortures. Even the mere 



SIR THOMAS MOUE AS CHANCELLOR 227 

inabilitv to disprove the charge, was ground sufficient for 
the extremest proceedings of this English Inquisition. 
Thus might any industrious, peaceable, virtuous citizen, 
who had incurred the hatred of the clergy, or even of an 
ill-minded neighbor, be snatched without warning from his 
dependent family, and after being hurried through a mock 
trial, be exposed as an abjuring heretic to the derision of 
the populace ; or, as contumacious, be immured in a loath- 
some dungeon, or be led out to an ignominious and cruel 
death. Many such cases are related by Foxe, which di- 
vide the heart between pity and admiration for the sufferer, 
and burning indignation against those who, under the holy 
name of religion, could thus oppress their fellow men. 
Who would not have thought that Sir Thomas More, the 
enlightened, the just, the humane, as he is represented, 
would have set himself as a rock against this abuse of ir- 
responsible power ? On the contrary, he defends the 
odious law and its horrible abuses, with all the skill of 
which he is master. We have no room for his arguments 
here ; but those who feel a curiosity to know, with what 
reasons the most enlightened English statesman of his time 
could advocate a criminal process for mere opinion, which is 
now banished from the common law of England in the case of 
the worst felons, can find them in his Apology^ and his De- 
hellacion of Salem and Byzance* both written the year 

* These two works belonged to a controversy between Sir Thomas More 
and an anonymous writer, known, however, to be Christopher Saint Ger- 
main, an eminent jurist of the day, who, ha two treatises, " The Pacifier^^^ 
and " Salem and Bizance^^^ had taken ground, though with great temper 
and judgment, against the tyrannical course of the clergy in regard to heresy. 
He was a Catholic, but not a Romanist; and the quotations made from his 
writings in More's replies, show him to have been a man of equal humanity 
and justice, far exceeding in breadth and liberality of views his more 



228 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

after his retirement. It was objected to him at that time, that 
the felon had at least the benefit of trial by jury ; to which 
he replies, that he never saw the day yet, but that he durst 
trust as well the truth of one judge as of two juries !"* 

But he did something worse, if possible, than to defend 
the law ex officio, viz., advocated the violation, on the 
ground of heresy, of safe-conducts granted by the King. 
Such had been furnished to Dr. Barnes, to allow him to 
come for a limited time into England. More says of him, 
(Pref to Conf p. 343,) " And yet hath he so demeaned 
himself since his coming hither, that he hath clearly broken 
and forfeited his safe conduct, and lawfully might be burned 
for his heresies, if we would lay his heresies and his de- 
meanor since his coming hither both twain unto his 
charge." To this Frith replies (Eng. Reformers, vol. iii. 
p. 422) : '^ This your saying is but a vain gloss ; for I my- 
self did read the safe-conduct that came unto him, which had 
but only this one condition annexed unto it, that if he came 
before the feast of Christmas next ensuing, he should have 
free liberty to depart at his pleasure, and this condition I 
know was fulfilled. How then should he forfeit his safe- 
conduct ? " Frith then turns the case very adroitly against 
the Ex-Chancellor. "But," says he, "Mr. More hath 
learned of his masters, our prelates, (whose proctor he is) 
to depress our Prince's prerogative, that men ought not to 
keep any promise with heretics. ; As though the King's 

celebrated contemporary. They are of great value, also, for the light they 
throw on the prevailing state of opinion in the community. More acknowl- 
edged, with a sort of peevish candor, that they had found great favor with 
the public, and that their brevity, and mildness of spirit were held up 
as models for his own imitation. We cannot see, however, that in either 
respect he profited by the lesson. 

* Debellacion, &c., p. 988. 



SIR THOMAS MORE AS CHANCELLOR. 229 

grace might not admit any man to come and go freely into 
his grace's realm, but that he must have leave of our pre- 
lates ! For else they might lay heresy against the person, 
and so slay him contrary to the King's safe-conduct; which 
thing all wise men do know to be prejudicial to his grace's 
prerogative royal. . . . These words had been very ex- 
treme, and worthy to have been looked upon, although 
they had been written by some presumptuous prelate. But 
that a lay man, so highly promoted by his Prince, should 
speak them, and also cause them openly to be published 
among his grace's commons, to reject the estimation of his 
royal power, doth, in my mind, deserve correction. Not- 
withstanding I leave the judgment and determination unto 
the discretion of his grace's honorable council." 

When the bishops came to offer him several thousand 
pounds in gold, contributed by the clergy as an expression 
of their gratitude for the important service rendered them 
by his pen, he utterly refused it, and said he would rather 
it were all thrown into the Thames, than that he or his fam- 
ily should be benefitted by it to the value of a siagle groat. 
He was actuated by a far different, shall we say far better, 
motive than the love of money. His inspiration was un- 
mixed religious zealotism. 

" For albeit they were," he says, '' as indeed they were, 
both good men and honorable, yet look I for my thank 
of God that is their better, and for whose sake I take the 
labor, and not for theirs."* He verily thought that he was 
doing God service. 

This inspiration never failed him, nor have we any evi- 
dence that the asperity of his zeal was in any degree soft- 
ened by his own bitter experience of persecution for opinion's 
* Apology, p. 876. 



230 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

sake. There came a time, when Sir Thomas More found 
that he had a law in his own bosom, of more authority than 
the behest of a king. When Henry requested him to ac- 
knowledge, against his conscience, the validity of his mar- 
riage with Anne Boleyn, and his supremacy over the church 
in England, he felt obliged to refuse, though at the forfei- 
ture of sucb honors as few men have to lose, of domestic 
ties peculiarly endearing, and of life itself Yet even when 
passing through that bitter conflict of soul, so touchingly 
described in his letters to his beloved daughter Margaret,* 
feeling that without the special help of God, he should fail 
in his allegiance to truth — even then, no remorseful mem- 
ory seems to have crossed his mind of those whom he had 
racked, body and soul, to compel them to violate their 
consciences. When it was urged upon him, at an exami- 
nation before the king's council, that no more was required 
of him than he had required of heretics, and for the refusal 
of which they had died at the stake ; he replied that the 
cases were not parallel, since their consciences were in op- 
position to the conscience of universal Christendom, i. e. of 
the holy catholic church, as expressed by its constituted 
authorities ;t but his was in unison with it ! Even in those 
devotional treatises composed in prison, so breathing of 
self-abasement, of submission to the divine will, of aspiration 
towards God, the name of heretic revives the same hard 
unrelenting tone as he had used in the days of his pride 
and power. How was it that the shades of the murdered 
IBiluey and Bayfield, of BainhamJ and Tewksbury, and of 

* More's English Works, Letter to Margaret Roper, p. 1449. 

•f Ibid, 1453. An illustration of this principle, interesting for its bear- 
ings on a recent decision of the Komish Church, will be found in the Ap- 
pendix. 

t Bainham, wtiilo standing Dy the stake, spoke as follows: "I came 



SIR THOMAS MORE AS CHANCELLOR. 231 

other inuocent and holy martyrs, did not crowd his solitary 
cell, making his heart quake with the horrors of the world 
to come, or humbling him in dust and ashes as the chief 
of sinners, because he had persecuted the church of God ! 
Ah, had it been so, he would have left a fairer name to 
posterity. 

When we contemplate Sir Thomas More in his patriar- 
chal household, the idol of that happy, virtuous, accom- 
plished family, who owed all they were to his wise and 
affectionate training; as the kind and charitable neighbor; 
as the incorruptible statesman; as the martyr to con- 
science, — how can we but admire and honor him ? Would 
that the dark pages of his history were not so much more 
numerous than the bright ! Would that the beautiful spec- 
tacle of even those last scenes, were not clouded by the 
thought of what he had done, as the fierce religious partizan, 
to foster in his sovereign those towering notions of royal 
prerogative, and that tiger thirst for blood, of which he 
himself was the victim. Surely, it was no more than a 
just retribution, that he should taste of " the mildness of 
that benign nature^'''' which he had so extolled when it 
was directed against heretics. Of no man could it ever be 
said more truly : " He ate of the fruit of his own doing, 
and was filled with his own devices." . 

hither, good people, accused and condemned for an heretic, Sir Thomas 
More being my accuser and my judge. And these be the articles that I 
die for, which be a very truth and grounded on God's word, and no heresy. 
They be these : First, I say it is lawful for every man and woman to have 
God's book in their mother-tongue. The second article is, that the Bishop 
of Rome is Antichrist, and that I know of no other keys of heaven's gates 
but only the preaching of the Law and the Gospel ; and that there is no 
other purgatory but the purgatory of Christ's blood." Almost his last 
words were : " The Lord forgive Sir Thomas More." 



232 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

With his fall, the fury of persecution sensibly abated. 
Not that his great allies, the bishops, had lost in any de- 
gree the persecuting spirit; but they had lost in him the 
directing mind and will. There was no longer the same 
thorough inquisition after heretical books ; Bibles came 
more and more freely into England, and were read with 
far less peril to life. In this result we see indeed the con- 
currence of other influences, long existing, but now begin- 
ning to act as leading forces. But before we pass to these, 
one victim of Sir Thomas More's zeal for his church, de- 
mands more particular notice ; — John Frith, the friend 
and coadjutor of Tyndale, — whose untimely fate was chief- 
ly due to the influence of the Lord Chancellor, though not 
consummated till after his retirement. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR. 

The Dame of Frith has been already mentioned as one 
of those Oxford students, whom Cardinal "Wolsey, in 1526, 
attempted to cure of reading the New Testament, by con- 
fining them several months to a diet of salt fish, in the 
cellar of Cardinal's College. On his liberation he fled to 
the continent, where he joined Tyndale, by whose instru- 
mentality he had first been made acquainted with the 
truth, and became his assistant in translating the Bible. 

A more harmoniously developed character than that of 
young Frith, is seldom found — combining a most genial, 
joyous temper, and a heart of exquisite sensibility, with 
that manly independence of mind, fearless courage, and 
strength of purpose, usually attributed to men of sterner 
mould. His brilliant genius and ripe learning had caught 
the attention of Cardinal Wolsey, no mean judge in such 
matters, when scrutinizing the jewels of Cambridge, with 
a>view to the transfer of the choicest to his new college at 
Oxford, which was to be " the most glorious in the world.'' 
These advantages were set off by a fine person and a singu- 
lar charm of manner, which seem to have exercised an 
almost magic power over his associates, and to have 
touched even the stony hearts of his persecutors with ad- 



234 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

miration and regret. Thus gifted and accomplished, he 
seemed marked out as one of the favorites of fortune. 
Nothing but time, apparently, stood between him and the 
highest posts of literary and clerical distinction. 

But all these things he counted loss, that he might win 
Christ, and make him known to his benighted country- 
men. The idea of giving the Bible to the people, had 
taken full possession of his soul ; and he asked no higher 
honor on earth than to labor with Tyndale — in exile, pov- 
erty, and danger — to realize it. Between the two co- 
workers, so different in age and natural disposition, so like 
in greatness of character and in single-hearted devotion to 
the same beneficent end, there existed an affection like 
that of Paul and Timothy. The grave and earnest Tyn- 
dale — a veteran in self-denial, toil, and sorrow, ever 
bearing about, like one of the old prophets, the burden 
of his nation's sins and woes — seems to have garnered up 
his heart in this beloved son in the Grospel, and to have 
found the chief solace and sunshine of life in his society. 
Protestantism is said to be too cold, too much concerned 
with the reason and understanding, to furnish subjects to 
art. For a pencil capable of interpreting a sublime idea, 
what more eloquent subject could be asked than that of 
Tyndale and Frith, seated, with their learned books around 
them, in a mean apartment of a Dutch house, translating 
the Bible for the English race ! 

In 1532, Frith came secretly into England. The pre- 
cise object of this hazardous visit is not mentioned ; but 
in all probability, it was to visit those ''Congregations'' 
of the pious, already referred to as having grown out of 
the assemblies of the Lollards, and which must have great- 
ly needed counsel and encouragement in this time of mer- 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR. 235 

cllcss persecution. In various parts of More's writings, 
tve find allusions to their secret meetings, and to the active 
zeal of their itinerant preachers. In the third book of the 
Dialogue,* he speaks of having himself been present, with 
*^ an honorable prelate," at the examination of " one that was 
an ancient heretic, and there confessed that he had holden, 
taught, and in divers countries spread about, almost all 
the heresies that any lewd heretic holdeth. . . . He had 
more names than half a leaf could hold, and dwelled every 
where and no where. For he walked about as an apostle 
of the devil, from shire to shire, and town to town, through 
the realm, and had in every diocese a divers name. By 
reason whereof, he did many years much harm, or he could 
be found out." On page 239, he speaks of another case 
examined by himself and '' a great honorable estate of this 
realm, before the King's court ;" the prisoner being charged 
with having '' intended, with such other as was himself, to 
do great robbery." "Wherein," says More, " among 
other things, he confessed that he had long holden divers 
heresies, which he said that his brother, being clerk of a 
church, had taught both his father and him. And I 
promise you, those heresies were of an height. Then he 
showed us what other cunning masters of that school he 
had heard read, and specially in a place which he named 
us in London, where he said that such heretics were wont 
to resort to their readings in a chamber at midnight. 
And when we asked him the names of them that were wont 
to haunt those midnight lectures, he rehearsed us divers. 
.... And he told us of some that were convicted, and 
some that were fled, and some that were yet at that time 
dwelling still in the town," Again, in the preface to the 

* Page 213. 



236 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Confutation, (1532,) in the account of Thomas Button's 
conviction, he say.s : " First, ye shall understand that he 
was a priest ; and falling to Luther's sect, and after that 
to the sect of frere Huskin and Zuinglius, cast off matins 
and mass, and all divine service, and so became an apostle 
sent to and fro between our English heretics beyond the 
sea, and such as were here at home. Now happened it so, 
that after he had visited here his holy congregations^ in 
divers corners and lurkes lanes^ and comforted them in 
the Lord to stand stiff with the devil in their errors and 
heresies, as he was going back again at Graves End, God 
considering the great labor that he had taken already, and 
determining to bring his business to its well-deserved end, 
gave him suddenly such a favor, and so great a grace in 
the visage, that every man that beheld him took him for 
a thief. . . . Having searched him, they found certain let- 
ters secretly conveyed in his coat, written from evangelical 
brethren here unto the evangelical heretics beyond the sea '* 

The most noted among these little communities, seems to 
have been the one mentioned by Foxe in his account of 
Bainham. Broken down by the cruel tortures inflicted on 
him by Sir Thomas More, that good man had at first ab- 
jured; but soon after again publicly avowed his faith, and 
submitted to death with great constancy and meekness. 
^' He was," says Foxe, " never quiet in mind and conscienco 
until the time he had uttered his fall to all his acquaint- 
a,nce, and asked God and the world forgiveness, before the 
congregation in those days in a warehouse in Bow Lane?"" 
After this he made a still more public confession in St. 
Austin's church, in presence of priests and people. 

Frith, though now only twenty-eight years of age, had 
already made himself known and hated by the English 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR. 237 

prelates. The previous year he had published a treatise 
on Purgatory, in which he combatted, with great spirit and 
conclusiveness, the opinions of Sir Thomas More * as well 
as of his brother-in-law Rastell, and the Bishop of Roches- 
ter, who had also published on the subject. This horrible 
doctrine of the Romish church, which so libelled the jus- 
tice, mercy, and truth of Grod, and so disparaged the sac- 
rifice of Christ, was inseparably identified with the author- 
ity and the gains of the priesthood. Its power over the 
mind of Sir Thomas More was intimately connected with 
his view of the merit of human works.f In 1529 appeared 
his elaborate defence of purgatory, entitled '^ The Suppli- 
cation of Souls ;" in which he took the ground that, ^' both 
is purgatory proved from Scripture, and the Catholic faith 
of Christ's church were sufficient to make men sure there- 
of, albeit there were not in all Scripture one text for it, 
and divers that seemed against it. "J His chief object at 
this time, however, was to prove its consonance to Scrip- 
ture. Rochester had previously attempted to sustain it 
on the authority of the fathers, and Rastell, soon after, by 
that of natural reason. 

In the preface to his answer to these treatises. Frith 
apologizes for the seeming presumption of '' one so young 
and of so small learning," in daring to argue against men, 
two of whom, '' to wit, my lord of Rochester and Sir 
Thomas More, are ancient men, both of great wit and dig- 
nity." But he desires his readers to heed rather what is 

* Supplication of Souls, published 1529. 

"f Thus while in prison, he expressed to his daughter the hope that his suf- 
fering for conscience's sake might, in connection with the Saviour's merits, 
'' serve for release of my pain in purgatory, and over that, for some in- 
crease of reward in heaven." Margaret Roper's Letter, p. 1442. 

t Sup. of Souls, 352. 



238 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

said than who says it, and to remember that ^^ God, who is 
bound to no age nor person, can inspire when he will and 
where he will." Nor does he ask them to admit his ar- 
guments except they are sustained by Scripture. '^ Lay 
them," he says, ^' to the touchstone, and try them by God's 
word. If they be found false and counterfeit, then damn * 
[condemn] them, and I shall also revoke them with all my 
heart; but if the Scripture allow them, that you cannot 
deny but it is so, then resist not the doctrine of God." 

The bold style and conclusive reasoning of this young 
champion of the truth, was very offensive to Sir Thomas 
More ; and we cannot but suspect in the virulence with 
which he afterwards pursued him, a large infusion of 
wounded vanity as well as of party zeal. In the Preface 
to his Confutation, put forth not long before Frith's visit 
to England, the Lord Chancellor boasted that, so soon as 
he shall have demolished Tyndale, he purposes '' to touch 
every part of young father Frith's fresh painted book ; and 
so shall I pluck of, I trust, the most glorious feathers of 
his peacock's tail, that I shall leave him if he have wit 
and grace, a little less liking to himself than he seemeth 
now to have, which thing hath made him to stand not a 
little in his own light." But Sir Thomas was not so sure 
of his arguments, it appears, but that he was eager at the 
first opportunity, to stop the mouth of his youthful antag- 
onist by force. In the Prologue to Frith's second book 
against RastcU, the writer (probably Tyndale,) informs us 
that " More and Rochester thought foul scorn that a young 
man of small reputation should take upon him, so clean 
contrary to their opinion, to write against them, and (to be 

* We find this word used continually in the old writers, evidently with no 
stronger meaning than that now attached to condemn. 



THE YOUTHFUL BIARTYR. 239 

short,) took the matter so grievously, that they could never 
be at quiet in their stomachs until they had drunk his 
blood.'' 

From the account given with such delightful naivete by 
the old Martyrologist, it is evident that Frith made his 
advent into his native land in a state of genuine apostolic 
poverty. " And he being at Reading, it happened that he 
was then taken as a vagabond, and brought to examina- 
tion, where the simple man, loth to utter himself what he 
was, and unacquainted with their manner of examination, 
and they greatly offended with him, committed him to the 
stocks, where he had sitten a long time and was almost 
pined with hunger, and would not for all that declare 
what he was. At last he desired that the schoolmaster of 
the town might be brought unto hfm, which was at that 
time one Leonard Coxe, a man very well learned. As 
soon as he came unto him, Frith by and by in the Latin 
tongue began to bewail his captivity. The schoolmaster 
being overcome with his eloquence, did not only take pity 
and compassion upon him, but also began to love and em- 
brace such an excellent wit and disposition unlocked for 
especially in such a state of misery. Afterwards, they con- 
ferring more together upon many things, as touching the 
Universities, schools, and tongues, fell from the Latin 
tongue to the Greek, wherein Frith did so inflame the love 
of the said schoolmaster towards him, that he brought him 
into a marvellous admiration, especially when as the 
schoolmaster heard him so promptly by heart rehearse 
Homer's verses out of his first book of Iliad. Whereupon 
the schoolmaster went with all speed unto the magistrates 
grievously complaining of the injury which they did show 
unto so excellent and innocent a young man ; and so 



240 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

through the help of the said schoolmaster, the said Frith 
was freely set at liberty." 

Foxe reports from hearsay, that Frith had come over 
with the special object of obtaining pecuniary assistance 
from the prior of Reading ; but there is no evidence of 
this in the story as he relates it. Taking leave of the wor- 
thy schoolmaster, Frith now made his way with all possible 
secrecy from place to place, striving to confirm the faith 
and hope of his brethren, and realizing in his christian com- 
munion with them, the longing expressed by the Apostle : 
** That we may be comforted together by the mutual faith 
of both you and me." From the letter afterwards ad- 
dressed to them from prison, it appears that he had found 
these humble disciples not only stronger in numbers, but 
farther advanced in spiritual knowledge and the life of god- 
liness than he had anticipated ; and that he recognized their 
patience, zeal, and love, as the genuine fruits of that divine 
WORD for the possession of which they risked all that was 
dear on earth. 

But his mission was soon brought to an end. ^^ Albeit," 
says Foxe, '' his safety continued not long, through the great 
hatred and deadly pursuit of Sir Thomas More, who at that 
time being Chancellor of England, persecuted him both by 
land and sea, besetting all the ways, havens, and ports; yea, 
and promising great rewards if any man would bring him any 
news or tidings of him. Thus Frith, being on every part 
beset with troubles, not knowing which way to turn him, 
sought for some place to hide him in ; and so, flying from 
one place to another, and often changing both his garments 
and place, yet could he be in safety in no place, no, not 
long amongst his very friends. So that at the last, he 
coming to a port town in Essex, called Milton shore, and 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR. 241 

there purposing to have taken shipping to have passed 
over into Flanders, was betrayed and brought back bound 
again, and laid in the tower of London." 

From prison he wrote the letter before referred to, 
*^ Unto the faithful followers of Christ's Gospel." Consid- 
ering the age and the circumstances of the writer, it must 
be regarded as one of the most remarkable on record : — 

" It cannot be expressed, dearly beloved in the Lord, what joy and com- 
fort it is to my heart, to perceive how the word of God hath wrought, and 
continually worketh among you ; so that I find no small number walking 
in the ways of the Lord, according as he gave us commandment, willing 
that we should love one another as hS loved us. Now have I experience of 
the faith which is in you, and can testify that it is without simulation ; that 
ye love not in word and tongue only, but in work and verity. 

" What can be more trial of a faithful heart than to adventure, not only 
to aid and succor by th« means of others, which without danger may not be 
admitted unto us, but also personally to visit the poor oppressed, and see 
that nothing be lacking unto them, but that they have both ghostly comfort 
and bodily sustenance, notwithstanding the strait inhibition and terrible 
menacing of these worldly rulers ; even ready to abide the extreme jeopar- 
dies that tyrants can imagine 7 

" This is an evidence that you have prepared yourselves to the cross of 
Christ. This is an evidence that ye have cast your accounts, and have 
wherewith to finish the tower which ye have begun to build. And I doubt 
not but that He, which hath begun to work in you, shall for his glory accom- 
plish the same, even unto the coming of the Lord, which shall give unto 
every man according to his deeds. And albeit God, of his secret judgments, 
for a time keep the rod from some of them that ensue his steps ; yet let 
them surely reckon upon it, for there is no doubt but all which will devout- 
ly live in Christ, must suffer persecution ; for ' whom the Lord loveth he 
correcteth, and scourgeth every child that he receiveth.' For what child is 
that whom the Father chastiseth not ? 

" Of these things, God had given me the speculation before ; and now it 
hath pleased him to put them in use and practise upon me. I ever thought, 
and yet do think, that to walk after God's word would cost me my life, at 
one time or another. And albeit that the King's Grace should take me into 
his favor, and not to suffer the bloody Edomites to have their pleasure upon 
me ; yet will I not think that I am escaped, but that God hath only deferred 

11 



242 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

it for a season, to the intent that I should work somewhat that he hath ap- 
pointed me to do, and so to use me unto his glory. 

" And I beseech all the followers of Christ to arm themselves with the 
same supposition, marking themselves with the sign of the cross ; not from 
the cross, as the superstitious multitude do, but rather to the cross, in token 
that they be ever ready, willingly to receive the cross, when it shall please 
God to lay it upon them. The day that it cometh not count it clear won, 
giving thanks to the Lord which hath kept it from you ; and then when it 
cometh, it shall nothing dismay you ; for it is no new thing, but even that 
which ye have continually looked for. 

" And doubt not but that God, which is faithful, shall not suffer you to be 
tempted above that which ye are able to bear, but shall ever send some oc- 
casion, by the which ye shall stand steadfast ; for either he shall blind the 
eyes of your enemies, and diminish their tyrannous power, or else when he 
hath suffered them to do their best, and that the dragon hath cast a whole 
flood of waters after you, he shall cause even the very earth to open her 
mouth and swallow them up. So faithful is he, and careful to ease us, what 
time the vexation should be too heavy for us. 

" He shall send a Joseph before you against ye shall come into Egypt . 
yea, he shall so provide for you, that ye shall have an hundred fathers for 
one ; an hundred mothers for one ; an hundred houses for one ; and that in 
this life, as I have proved by experience ; and after this life, everlasting 
joy with Christ our Saviour." 

Such were the '' poisonous and seditious sentiments," of 
which the Lord Chancellor was so anxious to purge the 
realm, that if they must follow in the train of the Bible, 
the Bible must be banished with them ! 

The good Tyndale, at his solitary labor in a foreign 
land, must have felt not a little solicitude for his beloved 
young brother, exposed as he knew to such daily and 
hourly peril. The following extracts from his correspon- 
dence with Frith, permit us a familiar glance into his 
great and gentle soul ; and we no longer wonder that dis- 
parity of years was no barrier between these two congenial 
spirits. The letter from which we first quote, was written 
before he had heard of his friend's imprisonment. The 



I 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR. 243 

counsel it contains in reference to Frith's preaching, and 
the direction of his influence in general, sujficiently indi-' 
cates the main object of his visit to England : — 

'• The grace of our Saviour Jesus, his patience, meekness, humbleness, 
circums2Dection,mnd wisdom be with your heart, amen ! Dearly beloved 
brother, mine heart's desire in our Saviour Jesus is, that you arm yourself 
with patience, and be cool, sober wise, and circumspect ; and that you keep 
you alow by the ground, avoiding high questions that pass the common ca- 
pacity. But expound the law truly, and open the veil of Moses, to condemn 
all flesh, and prove all men sinners, and all deeds under the law, before 
mercy have taken away the condemnation thereof, to be sin and damnable. 
And then, as a faithful minister, set abroach the mercy of our Lord Jesus, 
and let the wounded consciences drink of the water of him. Then shall your 
preaching be with power, and not as the doctrine of the hypocrites, and the 
Spirit of God shall work with you, and all consciences shall bear record 
unto you, and feel that it is so. And all doctrine that casteth a mist on 
these two, to shadow and hide them — I mean the law of God and the mercy 
of Christ — that resist with all your power. Sacraments without signification 
refuse. If they put significations to them, receive them if you see it may 
help, though it be not necessary. 

" I guessed long ago that God would send a dazing into the head of the 
Spirituality, to cateh themselves in their own subtilty ; and I trust it is 
come to pass. And now, methinketh I smell a Council to be taken, little 
for their profits, in time to come. But you must understand that it is not of 
a pure heart, and for love of the truth, but to avenge themselves, and to eat 
the harlot's flesh, and to suck the marrow of her bones. Wherefore, cleave 
fast to the rock of the help of God, and commit the end of all things to him ; 
and if God shall call you, that you may then use the wisdom of the world, 
as far as you perceive the glory of God may come thereof, refuse it not ; and 
ever among thrust in, that the Scripture may be in the mother tongue, and 
learning set up in the Universities. But and if ought be required contrary 
to the glory of God and his Christ, then stand fast and commit yourself to 
God, and be not overcome of men's persuasions, which haply shall say, we 
see no other way to bring in the truth. 

'' Brother Jacob,* beloved of my heart, there liveth not in whom I have 
so good hope and trust, and in whom mine heart rejoiceth and my soul com- 
forteth herself, as in you : not the thousandth part so much for your learn- 
ing, and what other gifts else you have, as that you will creep alow by the 
ground, and walk in those things that the conscience may feel, and not iu 

* A feigned name, to avoid exposure. 



244 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the imaginations of the brain ; in fear, and not in boldness ; in open necessa* 
Tj things, and not to pronounce or define of hid secrets, or things that neither 
help nor hinder, whether they be so or no ; in unity, and not in seditious 
opinions — insomuch, that if you be sure you know ; yet in things that may 
abide leisure, you will defer, or say, methinks the text requireth this sense 
or understanding ; yea, and if you be sure that your part be good, and ano- 
ther hold the contrary, yet if it be a thing that maketh no matter, you will 
laugh and let it pass, and refer the thing to other men, and stick you stiffly 
and stubbornly in earnest and necessary things.* 

" And I trust you be persuaded even so of me. For I call God to record, 
against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus to give a reckoning 
of our doings, that I never altered one syllable of God's Word against my 
conscience, (as Sir Thomas More had insinuated,) nor would this day if all 
that is in the earth — whether it be pleasure, honor, or riches — might b^ 
given me. Moreover, I take God to record to my conscience, that I desire 
of God to myself in this world, no more than that (liberty ?) without which 
I cannot keep his laws. 

"Finally, if there were in me any gift that could help at hand, and aid 
you, if need required, I promise you I would not be far off, and commit the 
end to God. My soul is not faint, though my body be weary. But God 
hath made me evil-favored in this world, and without grace in the sight of 
men, speechless and rude, dull and slow-witted. Your part shall be to sup- 
ply that which lacketh in me ; remembering, that as lowliness of heart shall 
make you high with God, even so meekness of words shall make you sink 
into the hearts of men. Nature giveth age authority, but meekness is the 
glory of youth, and giveth them honor. Abundance of love maketh me ex- 
ceed in babbling." 

. The affecting and admirable expression of Christian love 
and fidelity which follows, was written after hearing of the 
imprisonment of Frith in the Tower : 

*' The grace and peace of God our Father and of Jesus Christ our Lord 
ho with you. Amen. Dearly beloved brother John ! I have heard say 
bow the hypocrites, now that they have overcome that great business which 

*The excellent Rense and Christian feeling of this advice, is worthy of the 
character of Tyndale. Both he and Frith believed Luther's view of the Euchai- 
ist to be false, and as such, prejudicial ; but it was essentially difterent from the 
Popish doctrine, which exalts it into a sacrifice and an object of worship. The 
discussion of this and similar points, Tyndale therefore wisely desired to post- 
pone to a more quiet time, concentrating, at present, the energies of all the 
friends of truth on such as were essential. 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR. 245 

letted them or at the least way, have brought it to a stay, they return to 
their own nature again. The will of God be fulfilled, and that which He 
hath ordained to be, ere the world was made : that come, and his glory 
reign over all ! 

" Dearly beloved, however the matter be, commit yourself wholly and 
only unto your most loving Father and most kind Lord, and fear not men 
that threat, nor trust men that speak fair ; but trust him that is true of 
promise, and able, to make His word good. Your cause is Christ's gospel, a 
light that must be fed with the blood of faith. The lamp must be dressed 
daily, and that oil poured in every evening and morning, that the light go 
not out. Though we be sinners, yet is the cause right. If, when we be 
buffetted for well-doing, we suffer patiently and endure, that is acceptable to 
God ; for to that end we are called. For Christ also suffered for us, leaving 
us an example that we should follow his steps who did no sin. Hereby have 
we perceived love, that he laid down his life for us ; therefore we ought also 
to lay down our lives for the brethren. Rejoice and be glad, for great is 
your reward in heaven. For we suffer with Him that we may also be glori- 
fied with Him ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned 
like unto His glorious body, according to the working, whereby He is able 
even to subject all things unto Him. 

" Dearly beloved, be of good courage, and comfort your soul with the 
hope of this high reward, and bear the image of Christ in your mortal body, 
that it may, at his coming, be made like to his immortal ; and follow the ex- 
ample of all your other dear brethren, which chose to suffer in hope of a 
better resurrection. Keep your conscience pure and undefiled, and say 
against that, nothing. Stick at necessary things, and remember the blas- 
phemies of the enemies of Christ, saying, they find none but that will abjure 
rather than suffer the extremity. Moreover the death of them that come 
again, after they have once denied, though it be accepted with God, and all 
that believe, yet it is not glorious, for the hypocrites say, ' he must needs 
die ; denying (then) helpeth not. But might it have holpen, they would 
have denied five hundred times, but seeing it would not help them, there- 
fore of pure pride and malice together, they speak with their mouths, that 
their conscience knoweth false.' 

" If you give yourself, cast yourself, yield yourself, commit yourself, 
wholly and only, to your loving Father ; then shall His power be in you, 
and make you strong, and that so strong-, that you shall feel no pain, which 
should be to another present death ; and his Spirit shall speak in you, and 
teach you what to answer, according to His promise. He shall set out His 
truth by you, wonderfully, and work for you, above all that your heart 



246 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

can imagine : yea, and you are not yet dead, though the hypocrites all, with 
all that they can make, have sworn your death. 

" ^Una solus victis, nullam sperare salutem.^ [The only safety for the 
vanquished is not to hope for safety.] To look for no man's help bringeth 
the help of God, to them that seem to be overcome in the eyes of the 
hypocrites. Yea. it shall make God to carry you through thick and thin, for 
His truth's sake, in spite of all the enemies of His truth. There falleth not 
a hair till his hour be come ; and when his hour is come, necessity carrieth 
us hence, though we be not willing. But if we be willing, then have we a 
reward and thanks. 

" Fear not the threatening, therefore, neither be overcome of sweet words : 
with which twain the hypocrites will assail you. Neither let the persua- 
sions of worldly wisdom bear rule in your heart : No, though they be your 
friends that counsel you. Let Bilncy be a warning to you. Let not their 
visor beguile your eyes. Let not your body faint. He that endureth to the 
end shall be saved. If the pain be above your strength, remember — 
' whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will give it you,' — and pray to 
your Father, in that name, and he shall ease your pain or shorten it. 
The Lord of peace, of hope, and of faith, be with you, Amen. William 
Tyndale.'' 

He then adds the following postscript : " Two have suffered in Antwerp, 
unto the great, glory of the Gospel , four at Rysols in Flanders, and at Lucca 
hath there one at least, and all the same day. At Roane (Rouen) in France 
they persecute, and at Paris are five doctors taken for the Gospel. See, you 
are not alone ; be cheerful, and remember, that among the hard-hearted in 
England, there is a number reserved by grace ; for whose sakes, if need be, 
you must be ready to suffer. Sir, if you may write, how short soever it be, 
forget it not, that we may know how it goeth with you, for our heart's ease. 
The Lord be yet again with you, with all his plenteousness, and fill you 
that may flow over. If when you have read this, you may send it to Adrian, 
do, I pray you, that he may know how that our heart is with you. 

*' Sir, your wife is well content with the will of God, and would not, ftr 
her sake, Lavo the glory of God hindered. Williain Tyndale.''* 

Was ever nobler friendship than this ! A friendship which 

♦ Thcpe two lines are all that we know of the wife of John Frith, but they re- 
veal a spirit us noble and devoted as hi.-* o\vni. Contrast wilh this message the 
persevering efforts of Margaret Roper [see Letters at the end of Sir Thomas 
More'ri Eng. Works,] to persuade her father to accommodate his conscience to 
the necessities of the time, and we must feel that, after all, the piety and the 
filial affection of this distinguished woman lacked the highest moral element. 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR. 247 

could strengthen one ^' best beloved," to endure patiently, 
and, if need be, to die worthily, for the honor of God ; and 
could repress every expression of personal sorrow that 
might tend to unnerve his resolution. Dear as the life of 
Frith was to Tyndale, there was something dearer yet, his 
Christian honor, his peace of conscience, his crown from 
the righteous Judge ; above all, that which was dearer to 
them both than aught else in earth or heaven, the glory of 
Christ. 

It is noticeable, how imbued are the letters both of Frith 
and Tyndale with the forms of Scripture thought, as if 
only thus could they find adequate expression for the emo- 
tions struggling in their breasts at such an hour. Was it 
not, indeed, a state of soul kindred to that which harmonized 
prophets and apostles to the mind of God, and made them 
meet vessels for the communication of HIS thoughts ! 
So glowed the soul of Paul, when he exhorted his breth- 
ren in Christ to steadfastness even unto death ; and when 
he cried to his beloved Timothy : Let no man take thy 
crown ! Most interesting too is it to recognize in these Scrip- 
ture expressions, so near a likeness to the language of our 
common version, — an added proof how much we are in- 
debted for its sublimely simple, nervous, beautiful phrase- 
ology, to the agency of that great mind, more than three 
hundred years ago. 

The conduct of Frith, while imprisoned in the Tower, 
was fully worthy of the principles and sentiments thus 
expressed. His Christian fortitude and cheerfulness seems 
never to have forsaken him ; and though denied the use of 
books, pen and paper, he still contrived, by the aid of 
his friends, to speak to both prelates and people through 
the press. One of the treatises sent forth from his prison 



248 TRE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

was a rejoinder to Rastell on the subject of Purgatory, 
and exhibits the same firmness of position, the same buoy- 
ancy and yet kindness of manner, which characterized his 
previous writings. Rastell had compared their controver- 
sy to play at tennis, and threatened to defeat him by toss- 
ing back his own ball ; that is, by turning against him the 
very Scriptures he had adduced in his support. Frith 
closes his reply with the following cheerful allusion to 
that boast, and to the circumstances under which he sus- 
tains his part in the game : 

" Thus have I answered to as much of Rastell's treatise 
as I could get ; if there be any more which may come to 
my hands, I shall do my diligence to disclose his deceit : 
so that God give me leave to keep the court with him, he 
shall win but little except he convey his balls more crafty. 
And yet the truth to say we play not on even hand ; for I 
am, in a manner, as a man bound to a post, and cannot so 
well bestow me in my play as if I were at liberty ; for I 
may not have such books as are necessary for me, neither 
yet pen, ink, nor paper, but only secretly, so that I am in 
continual fear both of the lieutenant and my keeper, lest 
they should espy any such thing by me ; and therefore it is 
little marvel though the work be imperfect, for whensoever 
I hear the keys ring at the doors, straight all must be con- 
veyed out of the way (and then if any notable thing had 
been in my mind it was clean lost) ; and therefore I beseech 
thee, good reader, count it as a thing born out of season, 
which for many causes cannot have its perfect form and 
shape, and pardon me my rudeness and imperfection." 

It is greatly to the credit of Rastell, that neither 
his high connexions, nor the situation of his opponent, 
could shut his ears to the truth. Frith's treatise was 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR. 249 

crowned by RastelPs conversion to the views of which he 
had twice been the public assailant. 

Nor was he afraid to measure swords again with the 
mighty Lord Chancellor, though lying in prison under his 
authority. Previous to his arrest Frith had been drawn, 
in spite of his own prudence and the cautions of Tyndale, 
into the dispute on the Supper. A christian brother of 
great excellence of character, far more worthy as Frith 
asserts, "to be a bishop than many that wear the mitre, 
if the rule of St. Paul were regarded in the election," had 
in private requested a statement of his views on this much 
controverted topic. Frith's view of the sacrament gave 
him so much satisfaction that he begged to be favored with 
it in writing, simply for his own edification ; which was 
done, the author also retaining a copy. But all this time 
Sir Thomas More had his spies round the country, to en- 
trap Frith ; and one of them, William Holt by name, fore- 
man to the king's tailor, having discovered his hiding place, 
had so insinuated himself into his confidence as to gain sight 
of the dangerous manuscript. Of this he earnestly begged 
the loan as a matter of friendship, and carried it forthwith 
to the Lord Chancellor, in whose hands two other copies 
had been placed in the meantime, by similar honorable 
agencies. To this transaction Frith alludes as the immediate 
cause of his imprisonment ; and from the Tower warned his 
friends of the false brethren who, for such base ends, had 
crept in among them, " feigning themselves to be just 
men." 

" Prepare ye cloaks," says the undaunted young cham- 
pion, " for the weather waxeth cloudy, and rain is likely to 
follow. I mean not false excuses, and fore-swearing of 

yourselves, hut that ye look substantially upon Godh 

11* 



250 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

word^ that ye may be able to answer their subtle objec- 
tions ; and rather choose manfully to die for Christ and 
his word, than cowardly to deny him for this vain and 
transitory life." 

Having his despised enemy under bolt and bars, and de- 
nied the use of books and pen, Sir Thomas More was now 
prepared to answer him. He accordingly wrote and 
printed an elaborate reply ; and then, for some reason 
which he very lamely glosses over in his Apology, at- 
tempted to suppress it. Frith's remark on it is, that 
*' some men think he is ashamed of his part." A printed 
copy could not be obtained for his use ; but some of his 
friends having, with great difficulty, procured a rough 
draught. Frith immediately addressed himself to an expo- 
sition of the subject, far more thorough and comprehensive 
than he had deemed necessary for the well-instructed bro- 
ther, at whose instance he had prepared his first treatise. 
More, in his Apology, speaks of a report which had reached 
him, that " the young foolish fellow was sweating in study- 
ing and writing against the blessed sacrament;" and says 
he had expressed the wish, '' that some good friend might 
shew him that I fear me sore, Christ will kindle a fire of 
faggois for him, and make therein sweat the blood out of 
his body here, and straight from hence send his soul for- 
ever into the fire of hell !"* 

From this coarse and savage railing, one turns with de- 
light to the pages of Frith, who, in the prospect of a speedy 
termination of his brief course by the cruel death of burn- 
ing, replies to his great opponent with a clearness of argu- 
ment, a manly earnestness and dignity, which betokens a 
mind governed and sustained by a profound faith in the 
* Apology, p. 903. 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR. 251 

truth he advocates. A year or more had now elapsed 
since he was thrown into the Tower; and his numerous 
examinations before the Chancellor and the Bishops, had 
left no doubt in his mind that his death was determined 
on. To this he alludes in answer to a sneer of Sir Thomas, 
respecting the wonderful activity of the prisoner's pen : 

" I answer, that surely I cannot spin, and I think no 
man more hateth to be idle than I do : wherefore in such 
things as I am able to do, I shall be diligent as long as 
God lendeth me my life. And if ye think I be too busy, 
ye may rid me the sooner ; for even as the sheep is in the 
butcher's hands ready bound, and looketh but even for the 
grace of the butcher when he shall shed his blood ; even 
so am I bound at the bishops' pleasure, ever looking for 
the day of my death, insomuch that plain word was sent 
me, that the Chancellor of London said it should cost me 
the best blood in my body ; which I would be glad were 
shed to-morrow, if so be it might open the King's grace's 
eyes." 

Sir Thomas had professed himself an ardent lover of 
peace. If the people would but shut their ears to all 
these agitating questions, and rejecting alike his books and 
those of the heretics against whom he wrote, would cleave 
fast to the good old ways, he would be well content were 
all that he and they had written, burned up together. He 
often adjures the reformers, if they are so stirred up by the 
adversary of good, that they must be at work, at least to 
restrict their poison to those who are already infected. 
Frith quotes from him an expression to this effect, and re- 
plies to it in the following noble words : 

^' It is not possible for him that hath his eyes, and seeth 
his brother which lacketh sight in jeopardy of perishing at 



252 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

a perilous pit, but that he must come to him and guide 
him, till he is past that jeopardy ; and at the least wise, if 
he cannot come to him, yet will he call and cry unto him, 
to cause him to choose the better way, except his heart be 
cankered with the contagion of such hatred, that he can re- 
joice in his neighbor's destruction. And even so, it is not 
possible for us which have received the knowledge of God's 
word, but that we must cry and call to others that they 
leave the perilous paths of their own foolish fantasies, and 
do that only to the Lord that he commandeth them, nei- 
ther adding any thing nor diminishing. And therefore, 
until we see some means found, by the which a reasonable 
reformation may be had on the one part, and sufficient in- 
struction for the poor commoners, I assure you I neither 
will nor can cease to speak ; for the word of God boileth 
in my body like a fervent fire, and will needs have an 
issue, and breaketh out when occasion is given. 

^* But this hath been offered you, is offered, and shall 
be offered. Grant that the word of God — I mean the text 
of Scripture — may go abroad in our English tongue, as 
other nations have it in their tongues, and my brother 
William Tyndale and I have done, and will promise you 
to write no more : if you will not grant this condition, 
then will we be doing while we have breath, and show in 
few words what the Scripture doth in many ; and so, at 
the least, save some." 

In May, 1533, More went out of office, and Sir Thomas 
Audley took his place as Chancellor. An immediate re- 
.laxation in the rigor of Frith's confinement, gave token 
that there was a change of policy as well as of hands in 
the administration, and that the bishops could no longer 
reckon, as their chief ally in persecution, the Keeper of 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR.' 253 

the Great Seal. Crumwell too, a cautious friend of '^ the 
new learning," was high in power ; and, it is said, was per- 
sonally favorable to the prisoner — a fact in which we trace 
the influence of Cranmer, now Archbishop of Canterbury. 
Probably, however, these shrewd statesmen thought it 
safer, considering their royal master's temper, to let the 
matter drop out of sight, than to permit it to come to an 
open trial of strength. Such is the most natural interpre- 
tation of the permission now given to Frith, " to go at 
liberty during the night, simply on his own word and 
promise, that he might consult with his friends." If it 
was their expectation that he would avail himself of the 
opportunity to escape, they must have been not a little 
vexed to learn of his punctual return to prison at the ap- 
pointed hour. It was not the last time that he disobliged 
his well-wishers by his incorruptible honor. 

But the triumph of the wicked was near at hand. Gar- 
diner, Bishop of Winchester — a name inseparably linked 
with that of Bonner in the annals of cruelty — had once 
stood in intimate relations with Frith, as his tutor and pa- 
tron, but was now his implacable enemy. At his instiga- 
tion, the King was informed one Sunday, in a sermon 
preached against " the Sacramentarians^'^ that one of these 
very heretics was now lying in the Tower of London, and 
so leniently dealt with, as actually to be employing his 
leisure in writing books to impugn the blessed sacrament of 
the altar. Henry was much displeased on hearing this 
fact; and having learned, on farther inquiry, that he had 
been already several months in prison, ordered Cranmer 
and Crumwell to attend forthwith to his examination, ^^ so 
that he might either be compelled to recant, or else by the 
law to suffer condign punishment." 



254 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

A coramission of the highest rank was appointed by the 
King to take charge of the trial, consisting of the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Win- 
chester, the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Suffolk, (the 
King's brother-in-law,) and the Earl of Wiltshire, (the 
Queen's father.) 

The arrangements made for the trial by the Archbishop, 
betray his timid and vacillating character. There is no 
reason whatever to doubt that he wished, most sincerely 
and earnestly, to save Frith ; but knowing how slippery 
was the eminence on which he himself stood, and how many 
hands were ready, at the slightest misstep, to push him 
from his place, he dared not do justice to his principles or 
his heart. Poor Cranmer ! he "died a thousand deaths 
in fearing one ;" and after all, finished his life at the stake, 
enduring a martyr's death without a martyr's glory. 

" To avoid," it was said, '' a concourse of citizens," the 
Archbishop removed his court from London to his country 
residence at Croydon. Whether it was not rather for 
another purpose, the reader will judge by the sequel. 
When th.e day appointed for the trial was near at hand, he 
sent two of his servants, on foot — one a gentleman of his 
household, the other a Welsh porter, by the name of Per- 
lebean — with letters and the King's ring, to demand Frith 
of the Constable of the Tower. We continue the narra- 
tive from Foxe : — 

" "When Frith was delivered to my Lord of Canterbury's gentleman, 
they twain, with Perlebean, sitting in a wherry, and rowing towards Lam- 
beth : the said gentleman, much lamenting in his mind the infelicity of tho 
said Frith, began in this wise to exhort him — ' To consider in what estate 
he was, a man altogether cast away in this world, if he did not look wisely 
to himself. And yet, though his cause wiis never so dangerous, he might 
somewhat, in relenting to authority, and so giving place for a time, both 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR. 255 

help himself out of trouble, and when opportunity and occasion should 
serve, prefer his cause, which he then went about to defend — declaring 
farther, that he had many well-willers and friends, which would stand on 
his side, so far forth as possible they then were able, and durst do : adding 
hereunto that it were a great pity that he, being of such singular knowledge, 
both in the Latin and Greek ; both ready and ripe in all kind of learning, 
£VS well in the Scriptures as in the ancient doctors ; should now suddenly 
suffer all ;;hose singular gifts to perish with him, with little commodity or 
proj&t to the world, and less comfort to his wife and children, and others, his 
kinsfolk and friends.' — ' This I am sure of,' quoth the gentleman, ' that my 
Lord Crumwell and my Lord of Canterbury, much favoring you, and know- 
ing you to be an eloquent learned young man, and now towards the felicity 
of your life, young in years, old in knowledge, and of great forwardness 
and likelihood to be a- most profitable member of this realm, will never 
permit you to sustain any open shame, if you will somewhat be advised by 
their counsel. On the other side, if you stand stiff to your opinion, it is not 
possible to save your life. For like as you have good friends, so have you 
mortal foes and enemies.' 

" ' I most heartily thank you,' quoth Master Frith, 'both for your good, 
will and for your counsel, by the which I well perceive that you mean well 
unto me. Howbeit, my cause and conscience is such, that in no wise I may 
not, nor cannot for any worldly respect, without danger of damnation, start 
aside, and fly from the true knowledge and doctrine which I have conceived 
of the Supper of the Lord, or the communion, otherwise called the sacra- 
ment of the altar ; for if it be my chance to be demanded what I think in 
that behalf, I must needs say my knowledge and my conscience, as partly 
I have written therein already, though I should presently lose twenty lives, 
if I had so many. And this you shall well understand, that I am not so 
unfurnished, either of Scripture or ancient doctors, schoolmen or others, 
for my defence ; so that if I may be indifferently [impartially] heard, I am 
sure that mine adversaries cannot justly condemn me or mine assertion, but 
that they shall condemn with me St. Augustine, and the most part of the 
old writers ; yea, the very Bishops of Rome of the oldest sort shall also say 
for me and defend my cause.' 

«' ' Yea, marry,' quoth the gentleman, ' you say well, if you might be in- 
differently heard. But I much doubt thereof, for that our Master, Christ, 
was not indifferently heard ; nor should be, as I think, if he were now pre- 
sent again in the world, specially in this your opinion ; the same being so 
odious in the world and we so far off from the true knowledge thereof.' 

" ' Well, well,' quoth Frith then unto the gentleman, ' I know very well 



256 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

that this doctrine of the sacrament of the altar, which I hold and have 
opened contrary to the opinion of this realm, is very hard meat to be di- 
gested, both of the clergy and laity thereof. But this I will say to you, 
[taking the gentleman by the hand,] that if you live but twenty years 
more, whatsoever become of me, you shall see this whole realm of mine 
opinion ; namely, the whole estate of the same, though some sort of men 
particularly shall not be fully persuaded therein. And if it come not so to 
pass, then account me the vainest man that ever you heard speak with 
tongue. 

" ' Besides this, you say that my death would be sorrowful and uncom- 
fortable unto my friends. I grant, that for a small time it would be so ; but 
if I should so mollify, qualify, and temper my cause, in such sort as to de- 
serve only to be kept in prison, that would not only be a much longer grief 
unto me, but also to my friends would breed no small unquietness, both of 
body and mind. And therefore, all things well and rightly pondered, my 
death in this cause shall be better unto me and all mine, than life in contin- 
ual bondage and penuries. And Almighty God knoweth what he hath to 
do with his poor servant, whose cause I now defend, and not my own ; from 
the which I assuredly do intend, God willing, never to start, or otherwise 
to give place, as long as God will give me life.' 

' This communication, or like in effect, my Lord of Canterbury's gentle- 
man and Frith had, coming in the wherry on the Thames, from the Tower 
to Lambeth. 

'' Now when they were landed, after some repast by them taken at Lam- 
beth, the gentleman, the porter, and Frith went forward towards Croyden 
(nearly ten miles,) on foot. This gentleman still lamenting with himself, 
the hard nnd cruel destiny of Frith, if he once came among the Bishops, 
and now also perceiving the exceeding constancy of Frith, devised with him- 
self some way or means to convey him clean out of their hands ; and there- 
fore, considering that there were no more persons there to convey the pris- 
oner but the porter and himself, he took in hand to win the porter to his 
purpose. 

" Said the gentleman to Pcrlcbean, (walking by themselves without the , 
hearing of Frith,) ' You have heard this man, I am sure, and noted hia 
talk since ho came from the Tower?' — * Yea, that I have right well,' quoth 
the porter, ' and I never heard so constant a man, nor so eloquent a person.' 
' You have heard nothing,' quoth the gentleman, ' in respect of both his 
knowledge and eloquence ; if he might liberally (freely,) either in univer- 
sity or pulpit, declare his learning, you would then much more marvel at 
his knowledge. I take him to bo such a one of his ago, in all kind of 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR. 257 

learning and knowledge of tongues, as this realm never yet, in mine opin- 
ion, brought forth. And yet those singular gifts in him are no more con- 
sidered of our Bishops, than if he were a tery dolt or an idiot ; yea, they 
abhor him as a devil therefore, and covet utterly to extinguish him as a 
member of the devil, without any consideration of God's special gifts.' 

" ' Marry,' quoth the porter, ' if there were nothing else in him but the con- 
sideration of his personage, both comely and amiable, and of natural dispo- 
sitions — gentle, meek, and humble — it were pity he should be cast away.' 

" ' Cast away,' quoth the gentleman, 'he shall be sure cast away, if we 
once bring him to Croydon. And surely,' said he, ' before God I speak 
it, if thou, Perlebean, were of my mind, we would never bring him thither.' 

* Say you so V quoth the porter. ' I know that you be of a great deal 
more credit than I am in this matter ; and therefore, if you can devise 
honestly, or find some reasonable excuse, whereby we may let him go and 
provide for himself, I will, with all my heart, condescend to your device.' 

* As for that,' quoth the gentleman, ' it is already invented how, and which 
ways, he shall convey himself, without any great danger or displeasure 
taken towards us, as the matter shall be handled. You see,' quoth the 
gentleman, ' yonder hill before us, named Bristow (Brixton) Causeway, 
(three miles from London,) there are great woods on both sides. When 
we come there, we will permit Frith to go into the woods on the left 
hand of the way, whereby he may convey himself into Kent among his 
friends, for he is a Kentish man ; and when he is gone, we will linger an 
hour or two about the highway, until that it draw towards the night. Then, 
in great haste, we will approach to Streatham, which is a mile and a half 
farther on, and make an outcry in the town, that our prisoner is broken 
from us into the woods on the right hand, towards Wandsworth, so that we 
shall draw as many as we may, to search the country that way for our pris- 
oner, declaring that we followed above a mile or more, and at length lost 
him in the woods, because we had no more company. And so we will, rather 
than fail, lie out one night in searching for him, and send word from Strea- 
tham to my Lord of Canterbury at Croydon, in the evening, of the prison- 
er's escape, and to what coast he has fled. So that by the morning, if he 
have any good luck at all, he will so provide for himself, that the Bishops 
shall fall of their purpose.' — ' I assure you,' quoth Perlebean, ' I like very 
well the device herein. And therefore, go ye to Frith, and declare that we 
have devised for his delivery ; for now we are almost at the place.' 

" When my Lord of Canterbury's gentleman came nigh to the hill, he 
joined himself in company with Frith, and calling him by his name, said : 
' Now, Master Frith, let us twain commune together another while. You 



258 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

must consider, that the journey which I have now taken in hand thus in 
bringing you unto Croydon, as a sheep to the slaughter, so grieveth me — 
and, as it were, overwhelmeth me in cares and sorrows — that I little mind 
what danger I fall in, so that I could find the means to deliver you out of 
the lion's mouth. And yet, yonder good fellow and I have devised a 
means, whereby you may both easily escape from this great and imminent 
danger at hand, and we also be rid from any vehement suspicion.' 

" When Frith had diligently heard all the matter concerning his delivery, 
he said to the gentleman, with a smiling countenance : ' Is this the effect 
of your secret consultation, thus long, between you twain 7 Surel}-, surely, 
you have lost a great deal more labor in times past, and so are you like to 
do this. For if you should both leave me here and go to Croydon, declaring 
to the Bishops that you had lost Frith, I would surely follow as fast after 
as I might, and bring them news that I had found and brought Frith 
again. Do you think,' said he, * that I am afraid to declare my opinion 
to the Bishops of Enghmd in a manifest truth V 

" ' You are a foolish man,' quoth the gentleman, ' thus to talk ; as though 
your reasoning with them might do some good. But I do much marvel, 
that you were so willuag to fly the realm, before you were taken, and now 
so unwilling to save yourself!' 

" ' There was and is a great diversity of escaping, between the one and 
the other,' said Frith. ' Before, I was indeed desirous to escape, because I 
was not attached, but at liberty ; which liberty I would fain have enjoyed 
— for the maintenance of my study beyond the sea, where I was reader iu 
the Greek tongue — according to St. Paul's counsel. Howbeit. now, being 
taken by the higher powers — and, as it were, by Almighty God's permis- 
sion and providence — delivered into the hands of the Bishops, only for religion 
and doctrine's sake, such as in conscience, and under pain of damnation, 
I am bound to maintain and defend. If I should now start aside and run 
away, T should run from my God, and from the testimony of his holy Word 
— worthy then of a thousand hells. And therefore, I most heartily thank 
you both for your good will toward me, beseeching you to bring me where 
I was appointed to be brought, for else I will go thither all alone.' And 
80, with a cheerful and merry countenance, he went with them, spending 
the time with pleasant and godly communication, until they came to Croy- 
don, where for that night ho was well entertained in the Porter's lodge. 

" On the morrow, he Wiis called before certain Bishops and other learned 
men, sitting in commi.ssion with the Lord of Canterbury, to be examined, 
where ho shewed himself passing ready and ripe, in answering to all objec- 
tions, as some then reported, incredibly and contrary to all men's expecta- 
tions. His allegations, both out of Augustine and other ancient fathers of 



THE YOUTHFUL MARTYR. 259 

the church, were such, that some of them much doubted of Augustine's au- 
thority in that behalf; insomuch that it was reported by them who were 
nigh and about the Archbishop of Canterbury, that when they had finished 
their examination, the Archbishop, conferring with Dr. Heath, privately 
between themselves, said : ' This man hath wonderfully labored in this 
matter, and yet in mine opinion he taketh the doctors amiss.' — ' Well, my 
Lord,' saith Dr. Heath, ' there is no man who can do away his authorities 
from Augustine.' He then began to repeat them again, inferring and ap- 
plying them so strongly, that my Lord said : ' I see that you, with a little 
more study, will easily be brought to Frith's opinion.' 

" This learned young man being thus thoroughly sifted at Croydon, to 
understand what he could say and do in his cause, there was no man willing 
to prefer him to answer in open disputation." 

Here ended the trial ; but Cranmer still retained him 
several da^js, laboring most earnestly in private to con- 
vince him of his errors. Finding this out of the question, 
he transferred him at length to Stokesly, Bishop of Lon- 
don, for final examination. This took place in St. Paul's, 
in presence also of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 
and was marked by the same unwavering constancy and 
calmness on the part of Frith. " When the question was 
finally put whether he would subscribe his answers, he took 
up the pen, and with his own hand wrote these words : 
* Ego Frithus ita sentio, et quemadmodum sentio, ita dixi, 
scripsi, asservi et affirmavi,' &c. : /, Frith^ thus do think ; 
and as 1 think^ so have I said^ ivritten^ defended^ and 
affirmed^ and in 7ny books have published ^ 

He was thereupon condemned to death as an obstinate 
heretic, and delivered over to the Mayor and Sheriffs of 
London for execution. Being then committed to New- 
gate, he was immured in a dungeon under the gate, loaded 
with as many irons as he could sustain, and his neck bound 
to a post with an iron collar, so that he could neither sit 
down nor stand upright. Yet even here his Christian 
cheerfulness and energy did not forsake him; and fettered 



260 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

as he was, he was constantly employed in writing, by the 
light of a candle, (no other ever penetrated to his prison,) 
words of pious comfort and encouragement to his sorrowing 
brethren. 

After a few days of this, torturing imprisonment, he was 
taken (July 4th, 1533) to Smithfield for execution. With 
him was a faithful companion — a tailor's apprentice, An- 
drew Hewet by name* — a guileless, affectionate, simple- 
hearted being, who deemed no other answer necessary to 
the learned doctors who examined him, than that he be- 
lieved ^^ even as John Frith doth." When told that then 
he must burn with him, he replied : ^^ Truly, I am content 
withal !" Being bound to the same stake, the wind blew 
the flames away from Frith, thus protracting his cruel 
agonies ; but the young martyr rejoiced at the circum- 
stance, as abridging the sufferings of his humble friend. 
One Dr. Cooke standing by, berated them, and bade the 
people not pray for them more than they would for a dog ; 
at which Frith smiled, and prayed the Lord to forgive him ! 

Thus died — not yet thirty years old — one of the most 
brilliant, accomplished, and virtuous of English youths. 
It was an end glorious to himself and to the cause for 
which he died ; but an eternal disgrace to the government 
and the church who joined hands to shed his blood. As 
Tyndale's chief helper in translating the English Bible, 
so much notice was due to him in this volume. What par- 
ticular part he had in that noble work, is not known ; but 
it is pleasant, while enjoying the fruit of Tyndale's piety 
and learning, to reflect that we may likewise be enjoying 
that of his younger, but no less worthy and devoted co- ' 
laborer. 

* Ills ;iccusor was the samo base wretch who had betrayed Frith to his 
enemies. 



II 



CHAPTER X. 



AXXE BOLEYX : THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 

We turn now to those counter influences in the English 
court, referred to at the close of chapter vin, which be- 
gan at this time to affect sensibly the interests of the Po- 
pish party. To understand their character we must glance 
back to their origin in the reign of Henry VII. 

In the year 1501, a marriage had been concluded between 
Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Katherine, third daughter 
of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. The Prince dying a 
few months after, his avaricious father, Henry VII, who 
could not make up his mind to restore the young widow's 
splendid dowry, projected a union between her and his sec- 
ond son Henry, now become, by his brother's death, heir 
to the throne. But as marriage with a brother's wife 
came within the degrees of affinity prohibited by the church, 
a dispensation was solicited and obtained without difficulty 
from Pope Julius, who thought by this means to secure 
the future king of England and his posterity as the grateful 
and submissive vassals of Rome. Accordingly in 1503, 
Prince Henry being then in his twelfth year and Katherine 
already twenty, they were betrothed with the understand- 
ing that the marriage was to take place when Henry should 



262 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

have attained the age of manhood. But whether such a 
result was ever intended by his father is extremely doubt- 
ful ; since it was by his direction that the prince, on reach- 
ing his fourteenth year, recorded his formal protest against 
the connexion ; and it was his solemn dying injunction, that 
his son should not incumber himself with a marriage liable 
to so many objections. 

On Henry's accession to the throne, in his eighteenth 
year, this important question, the decison of which could 
be deferred no longer, gave rise to warm debates among 
the royal advisers. Warham, then Chancellor and Pri- 
mate, threw the whole weight of his influence against the 
union, which he condemned ^'as incestuous and contrary to 
the laws of God, with which,''' he averred, " the pope could 
not dispense."* But Fox, Bishop of Winchester, Secre- 
tary and Lord Privy Seal, and a large majority of the 
council, urged such strong political and prudential argu- 
ments, that the young king yielded, though, it is said, not 
without reluctance. The marriage, so strangely brought 
about, was solemnized June 7th, 1509.t 

These facts are of importance, as showing that neither the 
legality nor the morality of this union were by any means 
admitted as unquestionable, either before or at the date 
of its consummation ; and that there existed grounds which 
might, at any time, become the basis of political or eccle- 
siastical intrigues. 

For many years no such occasion arose; and Katherine, 
by her personal charms and virtues, acquired and long re- 
tained the affections of her husband. The repeated loss of 
children was, indeed, a great drawback to the happiness of 
their union, the princess Mary being the only one of their 

* Henry's History, VoL XI, p. 80. t lb. 



ANNE BOLEYN : THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 263 

numerous family who survived the age of infancy ; but it 
does not appear that Henry entertained any serious doubts 
of the lawfulness of his marriage before the year 1524. 
Such is the date mentioned by himself, in a letter to the 
learned Grynaeus, as the time when his scruples commenced ; 
as also that they originated wholly in his own mind, and 
were not, as had been asserted, suggested by his confessor 
at the instigation of Wolsey. So he may have thought. 
But it is noteworthy, that this date follows close upon 
Wolsey's first great disappointment, of being raised by the 
Emperor's aid to the papal chair ;* and taking this fact in 
connexion with his subsequent management, we cannot but 
suspect that had Charles befriended the Cardinal, Henry's 
conscience would have slumbered a while longer in regard 
to his marriage with Charles' aunt. However that may 
be, it was from this time Wolsey's great aim to unite his 
master in a league with the King of France against the 
Emperor ; and as one important link in the intrigue, to 
sunder his marriage with Katherine. 

Circumstances favored his scheme. Katherine was now 
long past her bloom, while Henry was still a young man ; 
and sickness and the loss of children had given her a dis- 
gust with pomp and splendor, and a sombreness if not aus- 
terity of temper, very uncongenial to his gay and magnifi- 
cent spirit. A large part of each day was spent in melan- 
choly devotions upon her bare knees ; while she counted 
every moment lost which was given to the decoration of 
the perishiog body. When to these things is added Henry's 
disappointment of a male heir, in whom the succession might 
be settled past question, it is obvious how easily a designing 
man might insinuate doubts, whether he had not incurred 

* Henry's Hist. Vol. XI, p. 166. 



264 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the frown of heaven by entering into this relation. Henry's 
motives, in regard to any step of his life, when thoroughly 
sifted, will undoubtedly show a much larger proportion of 
selfishness than of honor ; still his early movements for a 
divorce from Katherine can be fully accounted for, with- 
out imputing to him hypocrisy or falsehood. But, his 
mind having been once turned in this direction, it was 
morally certain that he would not come to a decision ad- 
verse to his own wishes. The two prelates who at his 
marriage had taken opposite sides so strongly, were still 
living ; and Fox threatened to accuse the aged Warham 
of heresy, for denying the pope's power to dispense with 
the laws of God. But Henry was no longer disposed to 
be guided by him in this matter. Not only Warham but 
Thomas Aquinas wj\s found to speak on the other side ; 
and Henry became immovably convinced that he ought to 
separate himself from Katherine. He even composed a 
book on the subject, in which he settled the question en- 
tirely to his own satisfaction. With his usual headlong 
impetuosity he now began to look about for another 
wife ; and through the cardinal's influence, negotiations 
were commenced for the hand of the Dutchess Alen^on, 
sister of the French king. 

In 1527 a special messenger was dispatched to Rome to 
lay the matter before the Pope. He was the bearer of let- 
ters from Henry and the Cardinal ; those of the latter urg- 
ing, in the most importunate manner, immediate attention 
to this important case, that the conscience of the king 
might be relieved, and the way opened for a marriage more 
propitious to the interests of the kingdom. Meantime, 
however, the sack of Rome, and the imprisonment of Pope 
Clement, had reawakened in Wolsey's mind the hope of 



ANNE BOLEYN ; THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 265 

Ynoiinting the papal throne ; and to secure it he had not 
scrupled to attempt once more to ingratiate himself with 
the Emperor Charles, by all the arts of flattery and in- 
trigue of which he was master. On receiving a contemp- 
tuous repulse, he was so transported with rage as to write 
back, that " if he would not make him Pope, he would 
make such a ruffling between the princes as was not this 
hundred years, to make the Emperor repent; yea, though 
it should cost the whole realm of England. '^ The Emper- 
or's reply to this threat shows that he fully recognized the 
Cardinal as prime mover in the divorce. ''Ye go about,'' 
says he, " to give your king another wif« ; which, if ye do, 
may be the next way to cost you the realm of England."* 
But while the matter was thus hanging in suspense, an 
event occurred which gave it quite an unexpected turn. 
This was the appearance at the English court of the 
far-famed Anne Boleyn, daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, 
and nearly related to many of the first families in the 
kingdom. In her ninth year, she had been taken to 
France by the Princess Mary, Henry's sister, when 
she went thither to become the queen of Louis XIT. 
On the return of Mary to England, at her husband's death, 
the young maid of honor was retained in the service of the 
amiable and virtuous Queen Claude. At her death, in 
1522, Anne returned to England; and having become an 
inmate of the court, as one of Katherine's maids of honor, 
won the heart of Percy, eldest son of the Earl of Nor- 
thumberland, then in the service of Cardinal Wolsey, 
The proud churchman, who hated the Norfolks, to whom 
Anne was nearly related, peremptorily broke off the match, 
and dismissed her from court. This arrogant and cruel 

*EDg. Reformers, vol. I, p. 466. 
12 



266 THE ENGLISH BIBLE, 

proceeding, Anne could never forget ; and when, soon after 
her retirement, her faint-hearted lover submitted to marry 
another lady, she returned to France, and became one of 
the attendants of Margaret, Duchess of Alenqon, the fa- 
vorite sister of Francis I, The name of this brilliant, 
high-souled, and virtuous princess is a sufficient warrant, 
with all who believe in female honor, that there was no 
stain on the character of the youthful Anne. With her 
she remained three years ; and from her imbibed what, in 
the eyes of Papists, was worse than immorality — the prin- 
ciples of the Eeformation, For Margaret was a true 
Christian, and an ardent lover of the Scriptures, which she 
read daily, and commended to those about her, as the best 
solace and guide of life.* . 

* '' You ask me, my children,^^ — thus she expresses herself on this subject 
late in life-^" to do a very difficult thing, to invent a diversion that wiU 
drive away your ennui. I have been seeking all my life to effect this ; but 
I have found only one remedy, which is Treading the Holy Scriptures. In 
perusing them, my mind experiences its true and perfect joy ; and from 
this pleasure of the mind, proceed the repose and health of the body. If 
you desire me to tell you what I do, to be so gay and weU at my advanced 
age, it is because, as soon as I get up, I read these sacred books. Then I 
see and contemplate the will of God, who sent his Son to us on earth, to 
preach that Holy Word ; and to announce the sweet tidings that he promises 
to pardon our sins and extinguish our debts, by giving us his Son who 
loved us, and who suffered and died for our sakes. This idea so delights 
me, that I take up the Psalms and sing them with my heart, and pronounce 
with my tongue as humbly as possible the fine hymns with which the Holy- 
Spirit inspired David and the sacred authors. The pleasure I receive trom 
this exercise so transports me, that I consider all the evils that may happen 
to me in the day to be real blessings ; for I place him in my heart by fiiith, 
who endured more misery for me. Before I sup, I retire in the same man- 
ner, to give my soul a congenial lesson. At night, I review all that I have 
done in the day. I implore pardon for my faults ; I thank my God for his 
favors ; and I lie down in his love, in his fear, and in his peace, free from 
every worldly anxiety." 



ANNE BOLEYN ! THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 267 

In the household of this accomplished and pious prin- 
cess, Anne could have found only the purest influences for 
her heart.; while the brilliant intellectual circle of which 
Margaret was the centre, stimulated her active mind, and 
the refinements of the most polished court in Europe left 
their graceful impress on her manners. She returned to 
England at the age of twenty, was again appointed maid 
of honor to the Queen, and immediately took her place as 
the brightest star in the court of Henry Vlll. The beauty 
i^y which she eclipsed all her associates, v^ps increased by 
the modesty of her attire and the dignity of her carriage; 
and it should be remembered, to her everlasting honor as 
a woman, that she used -her power as the acknowledged 
queen of fashion, to introduce a more decorous style of 
dress among the ladies of the court. The spectacle of a 
court belle with neck and bosom modestly covered, was so 
strange at that day, that her enemies could only account 
for it on the supposition of some great personal deformity, 
which she wished to conceal. Burnet says, that " although 
the Queen had afterwards just cause to be displeased with 
her as her rival, yet she carried herself so, that in the 
whole progress of the suit, I never"find the Queen herself, • 
or any of her agents, fix the least ill character on her, 
which would most certainly have been done had there 
been any just cause or good color for it !" * 

These charms, combined with the frankness and gaiety 
of her manners, her skill in music, and the vivacity of her 
conversation, soon made a deep impression on Henry's 
fancy ; and when he found that not even a monarch could 
tempt her from the path of virtue, respect was joined to 
admiration. From that time, he resolved to make her his 
* Hist, of the Keformation, vol. i. p. 34. 



268 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

wife. Wolsey returned just then from France, with bad 
tidings, as he supposed, for his master ; namely, the fail- 
ure of his negotiations for the hand of the Princess Renee. 
But Henry bade him take comfort, since he had himself 
made choice of a wife — Anne Boleyn. Confounded at this 
announcement, Wolsey threw himself on his knees, and 
by every argument tried to win him from his purpose ; 
but in vain. He soon perceived, that while the divorce 
was now deprived of all those features on which he had 
counted for his own advancement, it must yet be urged on 
with redoubled energy, if he would not lose all influence 
with Henry. Accordingly, he withdrew his objections, 
fell in heartily with the King's views, and paid assiduous 
homage to the rising star. 

Besides Wolsey, a large proportion of the clergy lent 
themselves with enthusiasm to the king's wishes. Pope 
Clement also professed, at first, the utmost readiness to 
oblige a sovereign to whom the Holy See owed such a debt 
of gratitude ; and that he had excused himself from imme- 
diate action on the ground of policy, merely, and not of 
any conscientious scruples. When, indeed, he found that 
he could not oblige Henry without incurring the mortal 
enmity of Charles, he receded from his first position, and 
commenced that course of temporising policy by which, af- 
ter six years of vexatious subterfuges and delays, Henry 
was driven to take the remedy into his own hands. At length 
by the advice of Cranmer he appealed to the Bomish Uni- 
versities of England and the continent, and received an al- 
most unanimous verdict in his favor. So it was with the 
majority both of Romish and Reformed scholars and divines, 
an immense number of whom were consulted by agents of 
the king. This result has been ascribed to bribery ; but 



ANNE BOLEYN: THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 269 

Charles lavished money on the other side yet more freely, 
and if that were the sole moving power he should have 
gained the day. The true explanation is to be found in 
the almost universal prevalence of the opinion, that the 
Levitical law of marriage was of perpetual authority, not 
liable to be set aside even by the Pope himself.* 

In 1530, ilenry renewed his application to Eome, but 
could gain nothing beyond flattery and evasive promises. 
Seeing how the case must turn, he now prepared with great 
shrewdness for the approaching storm. He first laid the 
matter before parliament, in the winter of 1531. Sir 
Thomas More, then Lord Chancellor, attended by twelve 
peers, came to the house of commons and made a speech 
in explanation of the king's motives in desiring the divorce, 
and exhibited before them the decisions of the universities, 
together with numerous books and other writings in justi- 
fication of his procedure. This being done, the chancellor 
added : '' Now, you in this house, report in your countries 
what you have seen and heard ; and then all men shall 
openl}^ perceive that the king hath not attempted this mat- 
ter of will or pleasure, as some strangers report, but only 
for the discharge of his conscience, and surety of the suc- 
cession of this realm." 

His next step was to secure the concurrence of the 
clergy. He was well aware that they could not be relied 
on, in the impending conflict with the papacy, unless they 
were first crippled in their wealth and power. The way 
for this had already been prepared a year before. By act- 
ing as Papal Legate, Wolsey had incurred the heavy pen- 
alties of the statute of premunire^ which forbade the ex- 

* See Burnett's account (Hist. Ref. vol. ii,) of all the facts connected with 
this transaction. 



270 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

ercise of that office as contrary to the allegiance due to the 
king. To be sure he had the sanction of Henry, under the 
great seal, for so doing ; but to appease his angry master, 
who had enough real causes of offence against him to ensure 
his ruin, he pleaded guilty to the false charge, and submit- 
ted to the forfeiture of his enormous property without a 
murmur. But by this course he left all who had acted 
under his legantine authority without defence. The saga- 
cious and far-seeing Thomas Crumwell had pointed out, 
immediately on the fall of the great favorite, the king's 
true policy in relation to the bishops ; and the plan nursed 
for a year in secret, was now put in execution. A bill of in- 
dictment was filed in the court of King's Bench, against the 
entire body of the clergy, for their violation of the law oipre- 
munirc^ by acting under the legantine authority of the car- 
dinal ; as also, for their oath of obedience to the pope, con- 
trary to their fealty to their sovereign lord the king. By 
these offences they had, it was declared, " forleited to the 
king all their goods and chattels, lands, possessions, and 
whatsoever livings they had." Terrified by the fate of 
Wolsey, and perceiving that their master at Rome had no 
power to aid them in this exigency, they yielded to the 
iron will of Henry, and agreed to pay as a ransom for their 
property, the sum of one hundred eighteen thousand and 
forty pounds, (equivalent to at least a million and a half 
pounds sterling of the present time,) to be paid into tho 
king's treasury in five equal annual instalments. 

But this was not enough. As they had broken their 
allegiance to the king by their oath to tlic pope, they were 
informed that the money would not be accepted, unless 
paid to the king as "the Photector and Supreme Hkad 
OF THE Church and the Clergy of England." At this 



ANNE BOLEYN: THE HOYAL PATRONESS. 271 

they hesitated, but after long conferences and arguments, 
pro and con, they agreed to it substantially, though modi- 
fied in form as follows : ^' We recognize his Majesty to be 
the singular (sole) Protector of the Church and Clergy of 
England, and our only sovereign Lord, and, as far as by 
the law of Christ is lawful, also our Supreme Head." The 
first decisive blow had now been struck at the long existing 
connexion between the English government and the 
Papacy. 

Yet, even now, Henry did not in his heart wish to sep- 
arate from Rome. All this parade of energy was intended 
rather to terrify the pope into concurrence with iis wishes, in 
regard to the divorce, than as an absolute renunciation of 
his authority. Still less did Clement desire to sacrifice 
his hold on England, " that garden of delights," for the 
sake of Katherine, Agents were accordingly sent to 
Rome by Henry; and the King of France interested him- 
self warmly in endeavoring to avert the threatened rup- 
ture. But the influence of the Emperor was too potent • 
and early in January, 1533, a papal bull arrived in Eng- 
land commanding Henry, on pain of excommunication, to 
renounce all connexion with Anne Boleyn, and to reinstate 
Katherine in all her rights and dignities. "The reponse to 
this mandate was his marriage with'-Anne.on the 25th of 
the same month. The elevation of Cranmer to the pri- 
macy, his formal sentence, pronouncing the marriage with 
Katherine null and void, and the final steps by which the 
organic relation with Eome was forever sundered, soon 
followed. 

It would seem hardly credible, were it not recorded in 
authentic history, that during nearly the whole period era- 
braced in the foregoing rapid sketch, Henry and the bish- 



272 THF ENGLISH BIBLF. 

ops had been bosom friends in persecution. EspecialFj 
were the years 1529 — 32, when Henry's resentment against 
the court of Kome was at its climax, memorable for the- 
close union between the State and the Church for this ob- 
ject ; when, under the guidance of Sir Thomas More, the 
bond of amity was sealed in the, blood of some of Eng- 
land's noblest martyrs. So much connexion had this roya^l 
movement with the true reformation then going on in the 
kingdom ! Whether it would not have worked out a purer 
result without that aid' may well be questioned. 

In reviewing the history of the divorce, it seems strange 
that the injured Katherine should have found so few men 
of eminence, in the churchj to defend her cause. Eisher, 
bishop of Rochester, wag her chief advocate and her con- 
stant friend ; but there was no other one who voluntarily 
risked life or station for her sake. It might have beea 
expected that Sir Thomas More, with his high sense of 
honor and his strong convictions of the justice of her cause^ 
would come forth as the champion of the unprotected Queen. 
Eut such was not the case. When peremptorily required 
by the king to declare what, in his view, the laws of God 
and the decisions of the Fathers demanded in the case, he 
was, indeed, true to his sense of right. But his reluctance 
to take a decided stand for the weaker party, the extreme 
humility with which he disclaims all ability to judge on 
so profound a point, his charity towards those whose de- 
cision differed from liis, and the obsequious deference of 
his manner towards the king,* do not well bear to be set 
side by side with his confident and haughty bearing 
towards those poor defenceless creatures who were guilty 

*Seo his Letters from the Tower, particularly those to the King and ta. 
CrumwclL 



ANNE BOLEYN : THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 273 

of a faitli different from his own. On the subject of here- 
sy, he was not at all distrustful of his own judgment, 
either of Scripture or the Fathers. He had not modestly 
shrunk from spurring on the persecuting zeal of Henry, 
when the fortunes and lives of his most virtuous and loyal 
subjects were at stake, or feared to tell him that to show 
mercy was to peril his soul's salvation. A man thus bold 
against the weak and thus timid before the strong, cannot 
stand very high on the list of moral heroes. 

But there was a man, one urged, moreover, by the most 
powerful motives to make himself acceptable to his sover- 
eign in this matter, who dared to come forward, uncalled, 
and regardless of consequences, to speak to him the honest 
truth in the sight of God. That man was WillIam Tyn- 

DALE. 

Tyndale's pen was, beyond question, one of the great 
potencies of the time. The fearless conflict it had long 
waged with sin in high places, its bold advocacy of the 
rights of conscience, and the claims of Scripture, and not 
less its devout and beautiful expositions of pure and unde- 
filed religion, had made it a terror to the priesthood, and 
an instrument mighty to mould the convictions of the 
people. Not a word he wrote fell to the ground. In 
spite of statutes, proclamations, and the most rigid espion- 
age^ every tract and treatise that came from his pen, was 
speedily telling on public opinion through the length and 
breadth of England. Could he now but have seen in this 
matter with Henry's eyes, what a moment was this for 
gaining the King's ear to a more favorable reception of 
his views, for inclining his heart towards the persecuted, 
and gaining free admission for the Scriptures ! By pleas- 
ant and no doubt sincere counsel, seasonably given, Cran- 



12 



o* 



274 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

mer had stepped at once into the path of promotion, and . 
gained many important advantages for the cause of truth. 
And if conscience did not allow Tyndale to take the same 
course, should he not, for the sake of that cause, at least 
have observed the prudent policy of silence ? 

But policy was a word unknown to Tyndale. His 
confidence in truth had a simplicity and entireness, which 
to the half-hearted often looks like rashness. He saw a 
great wrong about to be perpetrated under cover of res- 
pect for God's law ; a wrong not merely to the immediate 
sufferer, but to that institution which God had ordained as 
the chief guardian of social order and virtue. The general 
corruption of the marriage relation in England, of which he 
gives a frightful picture in his ^^ Obedience of a Christian 
Man," had long been among his heaviest charges against 
the clergy. But still other interests were involved in the 
present case. The project of divorce had, as he believed, 
its origin in the selfish ambition of an unprincipled priest, 
and was part and parcel of the policy steadily pursued for 
ages previous, which aimed to make the secular govern- 
ments of the world mere tools for promoting the power and 
glory of the priesthood. Civil and foreign discords were 
the means by which they rose. Perjured princes, ancient 
bonds of national amity broken without cause, national in- 
dustry destroyed, the wealth of kingdoms and the blood 
of thousands of innocent men lavished in needless wars, 
were mere sport to these proud hicrarchs, who, on the 
wreck thus made, planted the thrones from which they lord- 
^cd it over mankind. Under these circumstances, Tyndale 
could not refrain from attempting to open the eyes of his 
king. J^ I did my diligence," he says, " of a long season, 
to know what reasons our holy prelates should make for 



ANNE BOLEYN I THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 275 

their divorcement ; but I could not come by them. I 
searched wha^^ might be said for their part, but I could find 
no lawful cause, of myself, by any Scripture that I ever 
read. I communed with divers learned men of the mat- 
ter; which also could tell me no other way than I have 
shewed. Then I considered the falsehood of our Spiritu- 
ality, how it is but their old practice and a common cus- 
tom, yea, and a sport to separate matrimony, for to make 
division where such marriage made unity and peace. 
Wherefore I could not but declare my mind to discharge 
my conscience withal." 

"The Practice of Prelates; whether the King^s 
Grace may be separated from 'his Queen hecause she teas 
his brothers ivrfe.''^ Such was the outspoken title of the 
book which he sent forth on this great question. Its first 
object was to give a brief sketch of the successive steps 
by which the papal power had risen "to its present height, 
and gained such dominion over the consciences of princes 
as to be able to turn them in any direction for its own 
advancement. The following illustration of the growth of 
this terrible power is a happy specimen of his animated 
style of thought, and of his pure and vigorous English : 

'' And to see how our holj father came up, mark the ensample of an ivj 
tree ; first it springeth out of the earth, and then awhile creepeth along by 
the gi-ound till it findeth a great tree ; then it joineth itself beneath alow 
unto the body of the tree, and creepeth up a little and a little, fair and 
softly. And at the beginning, while it is yet thin and small, that the burden 
is not perceived, it seemeth glorious to garnish the tree in winter, and 
to bear off the tempests of the weather. But in 'the mean season, it thrust- 
eth roots into the bark of the tree to hold fast withal, .and ceaseth not to 
climW up tiii it be at the top and above all. And then it sendeth his 
branches along by the branches of the tree, and overgroweth all, and wax- 
eth great, heavy, and thick ; and sucketh the moisture so sore out of the tree 
and its branches, that it choketh and stifleth them. And then the foul 



■ 



276 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

stinking ivy waxeth mighty in the stump of the tree, and became^h a seort 
and a nest for all unclean birds, and for blind owls which hawk in the dark, 
and dare not come to the light." 

Passing gradually down to ^Hhe Practice of our time,'' 
the reformer depicts the history of Wolsey, his mean 
beginning, the arts by which he wormed himself into the 
king's affections, and gained entire supremacy over all 
that were about him, placing and displacing at his pleasure 
all officers around his person, even to the court chaplains, 
the king's confessor, and the very ladies of the queen ; till 
^'finally, Thomas Wolsey became what he would, even por- 
ter of heaven, so that no man could enter into promotion 
but through him.'^ To his intrigues he ascribes all that 
the nation had suffered for the last twenty years, ending 
in this scheme for separating Henry from his wife, which 
-was nothing else than a part of the plan by which the am- 
bitious prelate was to seat himself in the chair of St. Peter. 

Tyndale then turns to an examination of the divorce 
by Scripture, the conclusion of which is, that there is na 
warrant for it in the word of God ; and that to defy thus 
the word of God is to ensure speedy and terrible judg- 
ments on the land. 

Through the whole discussion, the king is treated with 
the utmost tenderness and respect, yet with a stern fidelity, 
not unlike that of John the Baptist when rebuking the 
guilty Herod. He thus manfully vindicates his right to 
warn his sovereign with all freedom against transgression 
of the laws of God : 

** Some man might haply say, that though a groat man might be content 
to have his deeds comjDared unto the laws of God, he would disdain yet to 
have so vile a wretch as I am to dispute them. I answer that it is not my 
fault, but God's, which, for the most part even chooseth the vilest, to con- 



ANNE BOLEYN: THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 277 

found the glorious ; which not only clothed his Son with our vile nature, but 
made him also of the very lowest sort of men, even five hundred steps below 
the degree of a cardinal, and sent him to rebuke the scribes and pharisees 
which sat on Moses' seat. And the glorious scribes and pharisees, for all 
their holiness, rebuked not Herod ; nor Caiaphas and Annas with all their 
highness ; but vile John the Baptist. Ey what authority 7 Verily, by the 
authority of God's word ; which only, whatsoever garment she wear, ought 
to have all authority among them that have professed it. That word is the 
chiefest of the apostles, and pope, and Christ's vicar, and head of the -church, 
and the head of the general council. And unto the authority of that ought 
all the children of God to hearken without respect to persons, for they that 
are of God hear God's word. And Christ's sheep hear Christ's voice ; yea, 
though he speak through a calf." 

The Practice of Prelates reached England in the year 
1530 ; but whatever effect it had on the views of others, it 
did not move the king from his purpose. That he felt its 
power, is evident from his violent and lasting resentment 
against its author. The story of his revenge runs through 
the six succeeding years, and closes only with the death 
of his reprover. 

It is with all the more interest that we note the evi- 
dences of a far different spirit, in one scarcely less inter- 
ested than Henry himself in the successful issue of the 
affair. We are told much of Anne Boleyn's resentment 
against Wolsey for his rude and cruel interference with 
her early connexion with Percy ; and for his temporary op- 
position to her marriage with Henry. If it was a fault to 
loathe this unprincipled and sensual man, and to use her 
influence to destroy his power over the king, no doubt she 
must be pronounced guilty. But we find no trace of any 
resentment towards Tyndale. She cannot have been igno- 
rant to which side of the question he had lent his power- 
ful pen. Yet during her whole course as queen, her influ- 
ence was steadily and courageously given to the further- 



278 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

ance of those same views, for the sake of which he had been . 
so long an exile, and the object of relentless persecution 
from king and clergy. From the date of her marriage, the 
working of a new and powerful element was felt in the Eng- 
lish court. Foxe says of the period immediately preceding : 
^' So great was the trouble of those times that it would 
overcharge my story to recite the names of all them which, 
during those bitter day^, before the comiyig in of Queen 
A7tne, either were driven out of the realm, or were cast 
out from their goods and houses, or brought to open shame 
by abjuration.'*' The " new learning " came gradually into 
the ascendant; Cranmer, Latimer, and others of like char- 
acter, men who pleaded openly for the Bible in the vernac- 
ular, were promoted to positions of high responsibility ; the 
Scriptures came more and more freely into England, and 
were read without molestation. 

Her agency in these changes cannot, in general, be di- 
rectly traced; but the unanimous judgment of all parties 
at the time, indicates her as the main spring of influence 
in this direction. In one instance of no little interest, 
we have the direct proof, in her own handwriting, bf her 
great power and the use she made of it. Richard Harman 
will be recollected as the English mercLant at Antwerp, 
who had taken so forward a part in bringing the early edi- 
tions of Tyndale's New Testament into England. For 
this, he had not only suffered imprisonment and heavy pe- 
cuniary loss, but, what to a man of bis character was a far 
severer calamity, expulsion from the Honorable Company 
of English Merchant Adventurers ; and this unrighteous 
action had never been reversed. But the very year after 
Anne became Queen,^ Ilarman ventured into England to 
seek redress. His application seems to have been made 



ANNE BOLEYN: THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 279 

directly to her, as the known friend of the Eeformation ; 
and the result — won from the King, no doubt, by her per- 
suasions — appears in the following letter from her to 
Crumweli, the State Secretary: 

AxNE THE Queen. 

Trusty and right -well beloved, we greet you well. And whereas, we be 
credibly informed that the bearer hereof — Richard Herman — merchant and 
citizen of Antwerp, in Brabant, was, in the time of the late Lord Cardinal, 
put and expelled from his freedom and fellowship, of and in the English 
house there, for nothing else (as he affirmeth) but only for that he, still 
like a good Christian man, did both with his goods and policy, to his great 
hurt and hindrance in this world, help to the setting forth of the New Testa- 
ment in English. We therefore desire and instantly pray you, that with 
all speed and favor convenient, ye will cause this' good and honest merchant, 
being my Lord's true, faithful, and loving subject, to be restored to his 
pristine freedom, liberty, and fellowship aforesaid, and the sooner at this 
our request, and at your good leisure to hear him in such things, as he hath 
to make farther relation unto you in this behalf. Given under our signet, 
at my Lord*s manor of Greenwich, the thirteenth day of May. To our 
trusty and right well beloved, Thomas Crumweli, Squire, Chief Secretary 
unto my Lord, the King's Highness. 

The tone of this royal epistle — royal in the best sense 
of the word — cannot but strike the reader with admira- 
tion. It is to be remembered, that though Bibles were 
now allowed to come silently into the kingdom, it was still 
in violation of express law and statute, and against the 
opposition of a powerful and embittered party. Yet she 
takes pains to state precisely the offence for which Harman 
had suffered, and justifies it as the right and praiseworthy 
act of " a good Christian man." As Anderson well re- 
marks, ^' no inayi^ either of office or influence, ever so ex- 
pressed himself while Tyndale lived.'' 

Tyndale had, without doubt, already been made ac- 
quainted with the noble stand taken for the truth, by the 



280 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

woman wbose elevation he had honestly opposed; and 
Richard Harman would not now fail, on his return to 
Antwerp, to inform his friend of the agency through which 
his errand had reached so happy an issue. Tyndale was 
then engaged in publishing his revised New Testament. 
His recognition of the services of Anne to the cause he 
loved, was equally appropriate and delicate — a beautifully 
printed and illuminated copy of the divine word, on vellum, 
with the Queen's name, Anna Regina Angli^e, arranged 
in large ornamental letters around the title page.* In 
the narrative yet to be given of the persecution to which 
Tyndale was afterwards subjected, we shall find traces of 
her personal interest in the Reformer, prompting measures 
which might have saved him, had she been seconded by 
hearts as brave and unselfish as her own. 

The close of the year 1534 was marked by a strange 
event ; no other than a petition to the King from the 
Clergy in Convocation assembled, for a translation of the 
Scriptures into English. ^' This good motion," as we learn 
from Strype,t was made and warmly advocated by Cran- 
mer. But it was not carried through without violent op- 
position from the Popish party, headed by Stephen Gardi- 
ner, Rishop of Winchester, who declared, that " all the 
heresies and extravagant opinions then in Germany, and 
thence coming over to England, sprang from the free use 
of the Scriptures. . . . And to ofi"er the Bible in the Eng- 
lish tongue to the whole nation during these distractions, 
would prove the greatest snare that could be."f 

The next year, Cranmer made a vigorous attempt to 
consummate this movement, by securing a version of the 

^Anderson, Vol. i. p. 413. f Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, Tol. i. p. 34. 

X Burnet. 



ANNE BOLEYN .* THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 281 

Scriptures, which might be circulated with the advantage 
of the King's sanction. Unwilling to wait till a new 
translation from the original could be prepared, and unable 
to use Tyndale's, which was prohibited by law^ he adopted 
the following plan, as related by Strype in his life:* 

" And that it might cot be probibited, as it had been, upon pretence of 
the ignorance or unfaithfulness of the translators, he proceeded in this 
method : First, he began with the translation of the New Testament — taking 
an old English translation thereof,! which he divided into nine or ten parts, 
causing each part to be written at large in a paper book, and then to be sent 
to the best learned bishops and others, to the intent they should make a 
perfect correction thereof. And when they had done, he required them to 
send back their parts so corrected, unto him at Lambeth, by a day limited 
for that purpose ; and the same course, no question, he took with the Old 
Testament." 

How cordial one of the Bishops was to this plan, is seen 
in the anecdote told by Strype of Stokesly, Bishop of Lon- 
don, who returned his portion uncorrected, with the 
answer : ^' I marvel what my Lord of Canterbury mean- 
eth, that thus abuseth the people, in giving them liberty 
to read the Scriptures, which doth nothing else but infect 
them with heresy. I have bestowed never an hour on my 
portion, nor never will. And therefore my Lord shall 
have his book again, for I will never be guilty of bringing 
the simple people into error." 

Of the secret efforts of Gardiner to frustrate this under- 
taking, as well as of Anne Boleyn's agency in securing 
a decision in its favor from the King, and of the cause 

* Strype's Cranmer, Vol. i. p. 43. 

f It is with pleasure that we recognize in this " old English translation,'"* 
the Tenerable version of Wickliffe. Of course it could be no other. The 
awkward device of transcribing one so well known as Tyndale's — which is 
Anderson's suppositions-must immediately have betrayed itself; but a 
work so rare as Wickliffe' s, newly copied, could with diflBculty be identified 
as hisj and might therefore well answer Cranmer's purpose. 



282 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

of its final failure, we are informed by Arcbbisliop Parker.* 
Being at this time chaplain to the Queen, f he had the best 
opportunity for understanding the whole transaction. 

"His royal Majesty," says Parker, " was petitioned by the whole Synod, 
to give commandment that the Holy Scriptures might be translated into the 
English tongue ; for so it could be more easily discerned by all, what was 
agreeable to the Divine Law. To this, Stephen Gardiner — the King's most 
secret counsellor — made resistance as covertly as possible. But through the 
grace and intercession of our most illustrious and virtuous mistress the 
Queen, permission was at length obtained from the King, that the Holy 
Scriptures should be printed and deposited in every church, in a place where 
the people might read them ; which grant of the King did not go into effect, 
because this most illustrious Queen soon after suffered death." 

Nor was this the only fruit of her zeal for the Scriptures 
in the language of the people. Before the close of this 
same year, Coverdale had completed and carried through the 
press a translation of the whole Bible, which owed much to 
her patronage, and was dedicated to her, conjointly with the 
King. Of her connection with it, there is sufficient evi- 
dence in the fact, that her sudden fall arrested it on the 
eve of publication. Of this version, a more particular ac- 
oount will be given in the proper place. 

Besides all this, there were now pending negotiations 
for a politico-religious league between Henry and the 
Protestant princes of Germany, which threatened to es- 
tablish the Augsburg Confession as the authoritative 
standard of belief in England. " There were many con- 
ferences," says Burnet,! " between Fox, Bishop of Here- 
ford, Doctor Barnes, and some others, with th'e Lutheran 
divines, for accommodating the differences between them, 

* De Antiq. Eccl. Brit. p. 385, (Harvard Univ. Library.) 
f Strype's Life and Acts of Parker, p. 7. 
I Hist. Rof., p. 146. 



ANNE BOLEYN: THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 283 

and the tiling was in a good forwardness. All wliicli was 
imputed to the Queen." 

It is not strange then, that she should have become an 
object of intense hostiUtj^to the popish part}?-, and that 
her fall should be regarded as essential to the restoration 
of the ancient order of things. Henry's wayward passions 
soon furnished the opportunity. Having fixed his affec- 
tions on Jane Seymour, he became impatient to rid him- 
self of the woman whom he had sought with such un- 
wearied- pertinacity, and for whose sake he had ventured 
and sacrificed so much. The measures into which he had 
been driven by the duplicity of the court of Rome, during 
that long conflict, had confirmed the worst tendencies of 
his character. Intoxicated by absolute power — with a 
court, a parliament, and a clergy the servile creatures of 
his will — he now fancied himself a very God on earth ; 
and there were enough who stood ready to use his insane 
pride for their own vile purposes. 

It is unnecessary to repeat here the familiar story of Anne 
Boleyn's sudden and tragic fate. Henry's part in it will 
forever stamp him, as one of the most cruel and selfish 
"monsters the world has seen. But there is ample evidence 
that she fell, less as a sacrifice to his passions than to the 
demands of a bloodier Moloch, the church of Home. Tried 
by a packed court, in secret, with most indecent haste; 
denied the aid of counsel ; the general impression then 
made on the public mind has been confirmed by the verdict 
of posterity, that she died the victim of a foul plot, guilt- 
less of the crimes with which she was charf>:ed. But of this 
we have evidences of a more direct character. There 
were weighty grounds, aside from his personal fancy at the 
moment, by which the enemies of Anne could work on the 



284 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

King's mind. The foreign and domestic difficulties in 
which he had become involved by his marriage, and his 
disappointment of a male heir, which left the succession 
still a matter of uncertainty, furnished a substantial basis 
for their intrigues. " The Duke of Norfolk* at court, and 
Gardiner beyond the sea, thought," says Burnet, " there 
might easily be found a mean to accommodate the King, 
both with the Emperor and the Pope, if the Queen were 
once out of the way ; for then he might freely marry any 
one whom he pleased, and that marriage, with the male 
issue of it, could not be disputed ; whereas, as long as th-e 
Queen lived, her marriage, being judged null from the be- 
ginning, could never be allowed by the court of Rome." 
There are, moreover, letters still extant,! disclosing a se- 
cret correspondence with that court on the subject, months 
before Anne suspected any danger. In the January pre- 
ceding. Sir Gregory Cassali, an agent of Henry VIII., 
was conferring with the Pontiff in relation to the King's 
marriage, and reporting the same to Henry in February. 
On the 27th of May, he writes : 

"Ten days have elapsed since I went to the Pope, and narrated to him 
the tidings that the Queen had been thrown into prison, lie then said, that 
he had been imploring Heaven to enlighten your mind on this aflfair ; that 
he had always had something of this sort in his eye, because he thought the 
mind of your Majesty was adorned with so many virtues. . . . That your 
Majesty might now perform an excellent work for Christendom, being now 
released from a marriage that was indeed too unequal for you J . . It was most 
manifest, that if your Majesty had the Roman Pontiff with you, you might 
command the other princes (i. e. the Emperor and Francis,) that he prom- 

* Norfolk was Anne's own uncle ; but a violent papist, and her bitter 
personal enemy. 

f In the Cottonian Library, quoted by Anderson, vol. i. p. 480. 

X Yet the news of her condemnation and execution, just a week previous, 
could not possibly have reached Rome at the date of this letter. 



ANNE BOLEYN I THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 285 

ised to obey you in this business — desired only peace — was not disposed to 
faction, nor covetously to increase his fortune by immense sums ; that your 
Majesty ought not to be in an angry mind towards him, but to be friendly." 

So honey-mouthed could the Pontiff now be — in pros- 
pect of the fall of Anne — who three months before had 
issued a bull of excommunication against Henry, as a con- 
tumacious rebel against the church ! Could these oily 
words but have persuaded Henry to return as a dutiful son 
into the bosom of Holy Mother ! England had been the 
choicest jewel in the triple crown. The prize was worth 
one more earnest trial. The conspiracy against the help- 
less woman met with triumphant success ; but the very day 
after her death, a woman succeeded to her place, who, 
though her inferior in all noble traits, was no less favorably 
inclined to the obnoxious sentiments ; and thus it was ut- 
terly foiled as to its chief end. 

The character of Anne Boleyn has been variously esti- 
mated, according to the point of view of those who judged 
her. A living female writer of distinction condemns her, 
with a severity strongly in contrast with the tender sympa- 
thy of her apologies for the crimes of Mary. It is not de- 
nied that her relation to the worthy Katherine, taken by 
itself, presents her in a light far from favorable. But we 
must remember, that it was no trifling affair to reject the 
hand of a willful and imperious monarch like Henry, who 
held not only her own life, but the lives and fortunes of 
her family wholly at his disposal, and who valued heads as 
little as foot-balls, when they stood in the way of his 
wishes.* Nor must we forget, that the general voice of 

* So testifies Sir Thomas More, when at the height of royal favor, and 
just after an extraordinary mark of the King's regard. " I thank God, 
son Roper," said the Lord Chancellor in reply to his congratulations, " I 
thank God that I find his Majesty indeed my very good lord. I believCj 



286 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the time, both in and out of the church of Rome, declared 
for the lawfulness of her marriage. She herself seems 
never to have doubted of it. Even in immediate view of 
death, when touched with passionate remorse for her lack 
of tenderness towards the forlorn Mary, she had no con- 
fession to make of injuries to Katherine, 

But even if in this she erred, with so many of the w^isest 
of her time, it may justly be claimed, that in every other 
respect she was as noble a woman as ever wore the English 
crown. E)^en in the gaiety of youth, and at the height of 
her triumph as the reigning queen of beauty and grace, the 
^ncense of court flattery could not meet the wants of her 
mind and heart. Even then, she studied the Holy Scrip- 
tures, and the works of the Reformers, at every risk ; and 
through her example and influence, a taste for the same 
earnest pursuits was communicated to some of the inmates 
of -the palace. Her character improved and deepened 
under her responsibilities as Queen. In charity, she was 
both wise and bountiful. *' Her ordinary," says one of 
her oldest biographers, ^! amoulited to fifteen hundred 
pounds at the least, yearly, (about £20,000 of our time,) 
to be bestowed on the poor ; her provision of stock for 
them, in sundry needy parishes, was very great. Out of 
her privy purse, went not a little for like purposes, to 
scholars in exhibition, very much ; so as in three quarters 
of a year, her alms and bounty were summed to fourteen 
or fifteen thousands." Strype says :* '' It was well known 

that at present he is as gracious to me as to any one of his subjects what- 
ever. But let me tell you, son, that I have no cause to be proud thereof; 
for if my head could gain him a castle in France, it would be oflf without 
ceremony." 

* Life of Archbishop Parker, p. 8. 



ANNE BOLEYN : THE ROYAL PATRONESS. 287 

how extraordinary munificent she was towards poor 
scholars, that were studious and virtuous ; and how liberal 
in her exhibition towards them. She only required some 
good character from Dr. Skip, or Parker, or some other 
of her chaplains, of any scholar that expected or sued for 
her bounty." Her short reign — less than three years — 
was an epoch in the history of England's evangelization ; 
and the slanders of her enemies should not rob her of her 
place among the honored martyrs to the truth. She died^ 
not for her faults, but for her advocacy of pure religion^ 
of the translation of the Scriptures into the common 
tongue, and their free diffusion among the people. 



CHAPTER XI. 



MARTYRDOM OP TYNDALE. 

From the first appearance of Tyndale's work on the 
king's divorce, the measures already long on foot for his 
destruction were pursued with fresh energy. Sir John 
Hackett, as we have seen, had failed in the attempt to 
procure his apprehension by direct aid from the Court of 
Brussels. The new scheme was, to decoy him into Eng- 
land by the promise of a safe-conduct from the kiog. Sir 
Thomas More was then at the height of power ; and we 
Lave already seen his opinion of the use to be made of 
a safe-conduct in the case of heretics. Nor were the other 
hifrh officers of state ashamed to lend their services to the 
nefarious plot ; and royal envoj^s were charged, in con- 
nexion with the management of international policy, to be 
on the watch for William Tyndale, Thomas Crumwell 
was chief director in the business, and Stephen Vaughan, 
one of his proteges, now Envoy and King's merchant in 
place of Hackett, his principal agent. The importance 
attached to this part of Vaughan's mission may be judged 
of by the following letter on the subject, addressed by him 
to the King, Jan. 26, 1530. 



MARTYRDOxAI OF TYNDALE. 289 

*' Most excellent Prince, and my most redoubted Sovereign, mine humble 
observation due unto your Majesty — My mind continually laboring and 
thirsting, most dread and redoubtable Sovereign, with exceeding desire to 
attain the knowledge of such things as your Majesty commanded me to learn 
and practice in these parts and thereof advertise you, from time to time, as 
the case should require. And being often dismayed with the regard of so 
many mischances, as always obviate and meet with my labors and policies, 
whereby the same (after great hope had, to do something acceptable unto 
your Highness' pleasure) turn suddenly to become frustrate, and of none ef- 
fect, bringing me, doubtless, into right great sorrow and inquietude, consider- 
ing that. Wherefore, lately, I have written three sundry letters unto Willy am 
Tyndall, and the same sent, for the more surety, to three sundry places — to 
Frankfort, Hamburg, and Marleborough (i. e. Marburgh ;) I then not ];eing 
assured in which of the same he was. I had very good hope, after I heard 
say in England, that he would, upon the promise of you Majesty, and of 
your most gracious safe-conduct, be content to repair and come into Eng- 
land, that I should, partly therewith, and partly with such other persua- 
sions as I then devised in my said letters, and, finally, with a promise which 
I made him — that whatsoever surety he would reasonably desire, for his 
safe coming in and going out of your realm, my friends should labor to have 
the same grouted by your Majesty— (but) that now, the bruit and fame of 
such things (as since my writing to him) hath chanced within your realm, 
should provoke the man, not only to be minded to the contrary of that where- 
unto I thought, without difficulty, to have easily brought him, but also to 
suspect my persuasions to be made to his more peril and danger ; than, as 
I think, if he were verily persuaded and placed before you. (your most gra- 
cious benignity, and piteous regard natural, and custom always had, towards 
your humble subjects considered, and specially to those, which, (ac)knowl- 
edging their offences, shall humbly require your most gracious pardon,) he 
should ever have need to doubt or fear. Like as your Majesty as well by 
his letter, written >vith his own hand, sent to me for answer of my said let- 
ters ; as also by the copy of another lett-er of his, answering some other per- 
son, whom your Majesty perhaps had commanded to persuade by like means 
may plain apperceive — which letters, like as together I received from the 
party, so send I, herewith inclosed to your Highness. 

" And whereas I lately apperceived, by certain letters directed to me 
from Mr. Fitzwilliam, Treasurer of your household, that I should endeavor 
myself, by all the ways and means I could study and devise, to obtain you 
a copy of the book, which I wrote was finished, by Tyndall, answering to a 
book put forth in the English tongue by my Lord Chancellor, and the same 

13 



290 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

should send to your Majesty, with all celerity — I have undoubtedly so done 
and did, before the receipt thereof. Howbeit, I neither can get any of 
them, nor, as yet, (is it) come to my knowledge that any of them should be 
put forth ; but being put forth, I shall then not fail, with all celerity, to 
send one unto your Highness." 

In a note to Crumwell, to whom this letter was con- 
signed, he adds : " It is unlikely to get Tyndale into 
England, when he daily heareth so many things from 
thence which feareth ^im. . . . The man is of greater 
knowledge than the King's highness doth take him for, 
which well appeareth by his works. Would God he were 
in England !" 

On the 17th of April, he had, most unexpectedly, an 
interview with Tyndale ; of which, the very next day, he 
transmitted the following account in a letter to the King : 

" The day before the date hereof, (17th of April,) I spake with Tyndale 
without the town of Antwerp ; and by this means. He sent a certain per- 
son to seek me, whom he had advised to saj^, that a certain friend of mine, 
unkno"\vn to the messenger, was very desirous to speak with me ; praying 
me to take pains to go unto him, to such place as he should bring me. Then I 
(said) to the messenger, — ' What is your friend, and where is he ?' * His 
name I know not,' said he, ' but if it be your pleasure to go where he is, I 
will be glad thither to bring you.' Thus doubtful what this matter meant, 
I concluded to go with him, and followed him, till he brought me without the 
gates of Antwerp, into a field lying nigh unto the same, where was abiding 
me this said Tyndale. 

*'Atour meeting — 'Do you not know me 7' said this Tyndale. 'I do 
not well remember you,' said I to him. ' My name,' said he, ' is T^mdale.' 

* But, Tyndale,' said I, ' fortunate be our meeting !' Then Tyndale — 

* Sir, I have been exceedingly desirous to speak with you.' * And I with 
you ; what is your mind 7' ' Sir,' said he, ' I am informed that the King's 
Grace taketh great displeasure with me, for putting forth of certain books, 
which I lately made in these parts ; but specially for the book named "T/iC 
Practice of Prelates ^''^ whereof I have no little marvel, — considering that in 
it, I did but warn his Grace, of the subtle demeanor of the Clergy of his realm, 
towards his person ; and of the shameful abusions by them practised, not a 
little threatening the displeasure of his Grace, and weal of his realm : in 



li 



MARTYRDOM OF TYNDALE. 291 

which doing, I showed and declared the heart of a true subject, which 
sought the safe-guard of his royal person, and weal of his Commons : to the 
intent, that his Grace thereof warned, might, in due time, prepare his remedies 
against their subtle dreams. If, for my pains therein taken, — if for my po- 
verty, — if for mine exile out of mine natural country, and bitter absence from 
my friends, — if for my hunger, mj'- thirst, my cold, the great danger where- 
with 1 am every where compassed ; and finally, if for innumerable other 
hard and sharp fightings which I endure, not yet feeling of their asperity, 
by reason (that) I hoped with my labors, to do honour to God, true service 
to my Prince, and pleasure to his Commons ; — how is it that his Grace, this 
considering, may either by himself think, or by the persuasions of others, 
be thought to think, that in this doing, I should not show a pure mind, a 
true and incorrupt zeal, and afiection to his Grace 1 Was there in me any 
such mind, when I warned his Grace to beware of his Cardinal, whose ini- 
quity he shortly after proved, according to my writing 7 Doth this deserve 
hatred 7 

" Again, may his Grace, being a Christian prince, be so unkind to God, 
which hath commanded his Word to be spread throughout the world, to give 
more faith to wicked persuasions of men, which presuming above God's 
wisdom, and contrary to that which Christ expressly commandeth in his 
Testament, dare say, that it is not lawful for the people to have the same, 
in a tongue that they understand ; because the purity thereof should open 
men's eyes to see their wickedness 7 • Is there more danger in the King's 
subjects, than in the subjects of all other Princes, which, in every of their 
tongues have the same, under privilege of their sufterance 7 As I now am, 
very death were more pleasant to me than life, considering man's nature to 
be such as can bear no truth.' 

'' Thus, after a long communication had between us, for my part, making 
answer as my poor wit would serve me, which was too long to write ; I as- 
sayed him with gentle persuasions, to know whether he would come into 
England ; ascertaining him that means should be made, if he (only) thereto 
were minded without his peril or danger, that he might do so : And that 
what surety he would devise for the same purpose, should, by labour 
of friends, be obtained of your Majesty. But to this he answered— that he 
neither would, nor durst, come into England, albeit your Grace would prom- 
ise him never so much surety ; fearing lest, as he hath before written, your 
promise made, should shortly be broken by the persuasion of the clergy ; 
which would affirm, that promise made with heretics ought not to be kept. 

" After this he told me how he had finished a work against my Lord 
Chancellor's book, and would not put it in print till such tijne as your Grace 



292 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

had seen it ; because he perceiveth your displeasure towards him, for hasty 
putting forth of his other works, and because it should appear that he is not 
of so obstinate mind, as he thinks he is reported unto your Grace. This is 
the substance of his communications had with me, which, as he spake, I have 
written to your Grace word for word, as near as I could by any possible 
means bring to remembrance. My trust, therefore, is that your Grace will 
not but take my labours in the best part. I thought necessary to be writ- 
ten to your Grace. 

" After these words, he then, being something fearful of me lest I would 
have pursued him, and drawing also towards night, he took his leave of me, 
and departed from the town, and I towards the town — saying, * I should 
shortly, peradventure, see him again, or if not, hear from him.' Howbeit, I 
suppose he afterwards returned to the town by another way, for there is no 
likelihood that he should lodge without the town. Hasty to pursue him I 
was not, because I had some likelihood to speak shortly again with him ; 
and in pursuing him, I might perchance have failed of my purpose, and 
put myself in danger.'' 

VaughaD, with all his courtier-like subserviency, was 
evidently quite too good a man for so base an errand. But 
this cautious attempt to soften the King's feelings was 
wholly unavailing. A very rough and severe reply from 
Crumwell, who was extremely vexed at the imprudence of 
his subordinate, conveyed the expression of the high royal 
displeasure at the tone of the above letter. Henry was, 
apparently, much alarmed lest his envoy, while attempting 
to execute his wishes, should be corrupted by this danger- 
ous man. He strictly forbade, therefore, any further ef- 
forts to persuade Tyndale to come into England; profess- 
ing that he was " very joyous to have his realm destitute 
of a person so malicious, perverse, uncharitable, and indu- 
rate ;" who, if once in England, '' would, by all likelihood, 
shortly (which God defend,) do as much as in him were 
to infect and corrupt the whole realm, to the great inquiet- 
ation and Imit of the commonwealth of the same." 



MARTYRDOM OF TYNDALE. 293 

The Secretary then adds his own earnest remonstrance, 
exhorting Vaughan by all his hopes of court favor and pro- 
motion, to show in his future letters to the king, that he 
bore '' no manner of love, favor, or affection to the said 
Tyndale, nor his works, in any manner of ways, but that 
he utterly contemned and abhorred the same." 

To this, however, was subjoined a postscript, the result, 
probably, of a subsequent communication from his Majesty, 
suggesting, that heinous as were the offences of Tyndale, 
if he would but abjure his errors, he might be permitted 
to return to England with some good hope of the King's 
mercy. On this hint Yaughan ventured to seek another 
interview with him, which he reports as follows : 

" I have again been in hand to persuade Tyndale ; and to draw him the 
rather to favour my persuasions, and not lo think the same feigned, T 
showed him a clause contained in Master Crumweir's letter, containing these 
words following — ' And notwithstanding other the premises in this my letter 
contained, if it were possible, by good and wholesome exhortation, to reconcile 
and convert the said Tyndale from the train and affection which he now is in, 
and to excerpte and take away the opinions sorely rooted in him, I doubt 
not but the King's Highness would be much joyous of his conversion and 
amendment ; and so, being converted, if then he would return into his 
realm, undoubtedly the King's Royal Majesty is so inclined to mercy, pity, 
and compassion, that he refuseth none which he seeth submit themselves to 
the obedience and good order of the world.' In these words I thought to be 
such sweetness and virtue, as were able to pierce the hardest heart of the 
world : and as I thought so it came to pass. For after sight thereof, I per- 
ceived the man to be exceedingly altered, and to take the same very near 
unto his heart, ici such wise that water stood in his eyes ; and he answered, 
' what gracious words are these !' ' I assure you,' said he, * if it would stand 
with the King's most gracious pleasure to grant only a bare text of the 
Scripture to be put forth among his people, like as is put forth among the sub- 
jects of the Emperor in these parts, and of other Christian princes, — be it of 
the translation of what person soever shall please his Majesty, I shall imme- 
diately make faithful promise never to write more, nor abide two days in 
these parts after the same ; but immediately repair into his realm, and there 



294 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

most humbly submit myself at the feet of his Royal Majesty, offering my 
body, to suffer what pain or torture, yea, what death his Grace will, so that 
this be obtained. And till that time, I will abide the asperity of all 
chances, whatsoev^er shall come, and endure my life in as much pains ss 
it is able to bear and suffer. And as concerning my reconciliation, his 
Grace may be assured, — that whatsoever I have said or written, in all 
my life, against the honour of God's AVord. and (if) so proved ; the same 
shall I, before his Majesty and all the world utterly renounce and forsake, — 
and with most humble and meek mind embrace the truth, abhorring all er- 
ror soever, — at the most gracious and benign request of his Royal Majesty, 
of whose wisdom, prudence, and learning I hear so great praise and com- 
mendation, than of any creature living ! But if those things which I have 
written be true and stand with God's Word, why should his Majesty, having 
so excellent a gift of knowledge in the Scriptures, move me to do anything 
against my conscience 7'^with many other words, which were too long to 
write." 

For nearly a year nothing more is heard on this topie 
from Vauo^han. But, from a letter to Lord Cromwell in 
1531, it appears that what he had already done had effect- 
ed nothing but to prejudice his own interests at court, and 
that Sir Thomas More was as busy in the measures against 
Tyndale, as in the persecutions at home. 

A subsequent letter places before us in a vivid light the 
conflict of opinion then agitating England, the mean and 
cruel policy employed to bring it to an end, and the tri- 
umphant spread of truth against all opposition. The noble 
sentiments of these extracts place Stephen Vaughan far 
above the greatest of his employers. 

" If Constantync*have accused me to be of the Lutheran sect, a fautorand 
scttcr-forth of erroneous and suspected works, I do not thereat marvel, for 

* Constantine was accused as a heretic, and a.^i engaged in the transportation 
of bookH, in 1528. That year he fled to Brabant, whore ho supported liimsolf by 
his profesHion, havini? been bred a surgeon. In the year 1531, having ventured 
into Enijland, ho fell into the hands of Sir Tiiom.'is More, who subjected him to a 
harsh imprisonment in his own mansion ; usincr his leisure to extract from the 
poor man, by alternate threats and promises, information against his brethren 
abroad and all who were suspected of favoring them. 



I 



MARTYRDOM OF TYNDALE. 295 

two causes specially. One is, for that my Lord Chancellor, in his examina- 
tion of the said George and of all other men (as I am credibly informed,) 
being brought before him for ca^es of heresy, doth deeply inquire to know 
what may be said of me ; and in the examination thereof showeth evident 
and clear desire, in his countenance and behaviour, to hear something 
of me, whereby an occasion of evil might be fastened against me ; which, 
no doubt, shall soon be espied in the patient whom he examineth, — who per- 
ceiving his desire in that behalf, and trusting, by accusing of me, to escape and 
avoid his present danger, of pure frailty and weakness, sparethnotto accuse 
the innocent. The other is, for that George, besides the imminent peril and 
danger in which he was, abiding prisoner in my Lord's house, was vehe- 
mently stirred and provoked. TVhat with the remembrance of his poor 
wife remaining here, desperate, bewashed with continual tears, and pinched 
with hourly sorrow, sighs, and mourning, and the sharp and bitter threat- 
enings of his poor (state) and condition, likely to be brought unto an extreme 
danger of poverty ; and more hard than the first, by the excess of his misery, 
to accuse whom they had longed for, rather than to be tied by the leg with 
a cold and heavy iron like a beast, — as appeared by the shift he made to 
undo the same and escape such tortures and punishments. Will not these 
perils, fears, punishments, make a son forget th.e father which begat him? 
And the mother that bear him, and fed him with her breasts 1 If they will, 
who should (wonder) though he would accuse me, a thousand times less dear 
to him than father or mother, to rid him out of the same 7 

"Would God it might please the King's Mnjesty to look into these kinds 
of punishments ; which in my poor opinion, threat eneth more hurt to his 
realm, than those that be his ministers to execute the same tortures and 
punishments do think or conjecture : and by this reason only, — It shall (will) 
constrain his subjects, in great number to forsake his realm, and to inhabit 
strange regions and countries, where they will not practise a little hurt to 
the same. Yea, and whereas they (the King's ministers) think that tor- 
tures, punishments and death, will be a mean to rid the realm of erroneous 
opinions, and bring men in such fear that they will not once be so hardy to 
speak or look, be you assured, and let the King's grace be therefore advertised 
at my mouth, that his highness (shall) will duly prove, that in the end it will 
cause the sect to wax greater, and those errors to be more plenteously 
sowed in his realm than ever afore. For who have so mightily sowed those 
errors as those persons which, for fear of tortures and death, have fled his 
realm 7 Will they not, by driving men out of his realm, make the rownt 
(irruption) and company greater in strange countries, and will not many do 
more than one or two 7 Will not four write where one wrote afore 7 Coun- 



296 



THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 



eel you the King's Highness, as his true subject, to look upon this matter, 
and no more to trust to other men's policies, which threateneth, in mine 
opinion, the weal of his realm ; and let me no longer be blamed nor suspect- 
ed for my true saying. 

" That I write I know to be true ; and daily do see experience of that I 
now write, which, between you and me, I have often said and written, 
though peradventure you have little regarded it. But tarry a while and 
you will be learned by experience. I see it begun already. 

" To some men it will seem, by this my manner of writing, that I being 
(as they suppose, and as I have been falsely accused to be) one of the sect, 
do write in this manner because I would that both I and the same sect 
should be suffered without punishment. Nay truly — But rather I would 
that an evil doer should be charitably punished, and in such manner as he 
might thereby be won with other, than lost with a great many. And let 
his Majesty be further assured, that he will, with no policy, nor with no 
threatenings of tortures and punishments take away the opinions of his peo- 
ple, till his Grace shall fatherly and lovingly reform the clergy of his realm. 
For there springeth the opinion. From thence riseth the grudge of his 
people. Out of that men take and find occasions to complain. If I say 
truth let it be for such received. If otherwise, I protest, before God and the 
World, that whatsoever I here write, I mean therein nothing but honour, glory 
and surety of my only Prince and sovereign, and the public weal of his realm." 

The next year discovers a new bailiff in pursuit of Tyn- 
dale, Sir Thomas Elyot, Ambassador from Henry to the 
Emperor. The rancorous hatred of the King, and the 
straits to which the reformer was reduced by his persecu- 
tion, appear from the following reference to it in a letter 
addressed, March 14th, 1532, to the Duke of Norfolk, 
then Prime Minister of England : 

" My duty remembered, with most humble thanks unto your Grace, that 
it pleased you so benevolently to remember me unto the King's Highness, 
concerning my return into England. Albeit the King willeth me, by his 
Grace's letters, to remain at Brussels, some space of time for the appre- 
hension of Tyndale, which somewhat minisheth my hope of soon return ; 
considering that like as ho is in wit moveable, semblably so is his person 
uncertain to come by. And, as far as I can perceive, hearing of the 
King's diligence in the apprehension of him, he withdraweth hira into 



MARTYRDOM OF TYNDALE. 297 

such places where he thinketh to be farthest out of danger. In me there 
shall lack none endeavour. Finally, as I am all the King's, except my soul, 
so shall I endure all that shall be his pleasure, employing my poor life gladly 
in that which maybe to his honour or wealth of his realm." 

But this attempt was as unsuccessful as the former. The 
persecuted exile was not without friends to warn him of 
approaching danger, and to afford him secure refuge in the 
hour of need. By many members of that honorable and 
powerful body, the Company of English Merchant Adven- 
turers, he was venerated as an apostle. As we have seen 
in the case of Vaughan, it was impossible for a man of any 
generosity of soul to come, even briefly, into contact with 
Tyndale, without a deep impression of his exalted moral 
worth; and we need not wonder that with those who 
had enjoyed the privilege of daily intercouse with him for 
years, this feeling should rise into an affectionate enthusi- 
asm, which would risk every thing to save him. A beauti- 
ful picture it is, which Foxe gives of his course of life in 
Antwerp, and of his relations to his noble countrymen : 

" First, he was a man very frugal, and spare of body, a great student and 
earnest labourer in the setting forth of the Scriptures of God. He reserved 
or hallowed to himself two days in the week, which he named his pastime, 
Monday and Saturday. On Monday he visited all such poor men and 
women as were fled out of England, by reason of persecution, into Ant- 
werp, and these, once well understanding their good exercises and quali- 
ties, he did very liberally comfort and relieve ; and m like manner provided 
for the sick and diseased persons. On the Saturday he walked round about the 
town, seeking every corner and hole where he suspected any poor person to 
dwell, and where he found any to be well occupied and yet over-burdened with 
children, or else were aged and weak, those also he plentifully relieved. 
And thus he spent his two days of pastime, as he called them. And truly 
his alms were very large, and so they might well be ; for his exhibition 
that he had yearly of the English merchants at Antwerp, when living there 
was considerable, and that for the most part he bestowed upon the poor. 
The rest of the days of the week he gave wholly to his book, wherein he 

13^ 



298 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

most diligently travailed. When the Sunday came, then went he to some 
one merchant's chamber or other, whither came many other merchants, and 
unto them would he read some one parcel of Scripture j the which proceeded 
so fruitfully, sweetly, and gently from him, much like to the writing of John 
the Evangelist, that it was a heavenly comfort and joy to the audience, to 
hear him read the Scriptures : likewise, after dinner, he spent an hour in the 
same manner. He was a man without any spot or blemish of rancour or 
malice, full of mercy and compaseion, so that no man living was able to re- 
prove him of any sin or crime ; although his righteousness and justification 
depended not thereupon before God ; but only upon the blood of Christ and 
his faith upon the same." 

But towards the close of 1534, or the beginning of the 
following year, a new plot was devised against his life, 
which ultimately proved successful. It is a noticeable fact 
that in the two previous attempts, when Sir Thomas More 
was all powerful in the royal counsels, the King appears 
as chief mover ; whereas, his name is not mentioned in 
connexion with the present one. He may not, indeed, 
have relinquished his own efforts for the same object ; but 
this seems to have been an independent plan, contrived by 
the leaders of the popish party against their most dreaded 
opponent. Probably they were deterred from seeking 
Henry's aid by a fear of the influence of Anne Boleyn. 
Whatever the cause, the fact is certain that they attempted 
to effect their object, not through him, but through his 
mortal enemy the Emperor, who, as the relative and pro- 
tector of Katherine, was also the patron of the disaffected 
Knglish clergy. 

The emissaries now despatched on this business were 
better chosen than those formerly employed by the King : 
being merely hired villains, with no character to lose, and 
no political duties to divert them from their errand. There 
were two of them ; the one a young man of prepossessing 
exterior, but a needy and profligate adventurer, named 



MARTYRDOM OF TYNDALE. 299 

Henry Phillips. He was to play the part of gentleman. 
The other Gabriel Donne, a monk of Stratford Abbey, was 
to pass as his servant, but was, no doubt, the real director 
of the enterprise. They were plentifully supplied by their 
employers with money wherewith to keep up appearances, 
and to apply bribery wherever needful. Donne first went 
to Louvain, probably to consult with^that enlightened Fac- 
ulty of Theology, which had once been so shocked at the 
impiety of Erasmus, and had driven Dorpius from the pro- 
fessor's chair. Here he was joined by Phillips, and both 
proceeded to Antwerp. 

Tyndale was at that time residing with an English mer- 
chant of that city, by the name of Pointz ; a gentleman 
of ancient Norman family, and of high connexions in his 
native land ; but far more honorably distinguished as the 
lover of the Scriptures, and the friend of Tyndale. As 
Tyndale's company was in great request with the other 
English merchants, and he was often invited to their tables, 
where also Henry Phillips, as a rich fellow-countryman, 
found easy access, the conspirator and his victim soon met. 
The engaging manners and professed friendship of the 
young man soon won the confidence of the unsuspecting 
Reformer. Not only did he invite him repeatedly to the 
mansion of his host, but even induced Mr. Pointz to re- 
ceive him as a lodger. The intimate daily intercourse 
thus established was diligently used by the base man, to 
become acquainted with everything in Tyndale's life and 
writings, which could subserve the purpose of his em- 
ployers. 

Having gained all necessary information, Phillips now be- 
gan cautiously to take steps for bringing the matter to an end. 
It was his design at first, as is supposed, to effect the object 



300 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

through the Antwerp city government. In this view he 
sounded Mr. Pointz, as he probably did others of his coun- 
trymen, to ascertain if he could be bribed into concurrence 
with such a measure. Such was the interpretation after- 
wards given to mysterious hints from Phillips, which at 
the time awakened no suspicion. For the idea, that any 
one could dream of bribing Thomas Pointz to betray his 
friend, never entered the thoughts of the noble merchant 
till events brought their own explanation. 

Failing in this plan, he made no application to the Ant- 
werp magistracy, but proceeded to the court of Brussels, 
about thirty miles distant. As King Henry, on account 
of his quarrel with the Emperor, had no ambassador at 
Brussels, Phillips had free scope ; and by connecting his 
designs against Tyndale with treasonable propositions 
against his own sovereign, he succeeded in obtaining a 
favorable hearing. On his return to Antwerp, the Em- 
peror's attorney accompanied him, for the purpose of ap- 
prehending Tyndale. Yet even the imperial officials dared 
not seize an Englishman openly in this free city, where 
English influence was so powerful, and several days passed 
by without action. But at length, Pointz left home to be 
absent a month or six weeks at the great annual fair at 
Barrow, and the favorable moment was now judged to have 
come. The remainder of the story is best told in the 
words of Foxe. 

" In the time of his absence Henry Phillips came again to Antwerp, to 
the house of Poyntz, and coming in, spake with his wife, asking her for 
Master Tyndale, and whether he would dine there with him ; saying — 
•what good meat shall we have?' She answered, 'such as the market 
will give.' Then went he forth again, as it was thought, to provide, and set 
the officers whom he brought with him from Brussels, in the street, and 
about the door. Then about noon he came again, and went to Master Tyn- 



MARTYRDOM OF TYNDALE. 301 

dale, and desired him to lend him forty shillings ; ' for,' said he, ' I lost my 
purse this morning, coming over at the passage, between this and Mechlin.' 
So. Tyndale took him forty shillings, which was easy to be had of him, if he 
had it ; for in the wily subtilities of this world, he was simple and inexpert. 

*' Then said Phillip's, ' Master Tyndale, you shall be my guest here this 
day.' No, said Tyndale, ' I go forth this day to dinner, and you shall go 
with nie, and be my guest, where you shall be welcome.' So when it was 
dinner time, Master Tyndale went forth with Phillips, and at the going 
forth of Poyntz's house was a long narrow entry, so that two could not go 
m a front. Tyndale would have put Phillips before him, but Phillips would 
in no wise, for that he pretended to show great humanity, (courtesy.) So 
Master Tyndale, being a man of no great stature, went before, and Phillips, 
a tall comely person, followed behind him ; who had set officers on either 
side of the door on two seats, who being there might see who came in the 
entry ; and coming through the same, Phillips pointed with his finger over 
Master Tyndale's head down to him, that the officers who sat at the door 
might see that it was he, whom they should take ; as the officers afterwards 
told Poyntz ; and said, when they had laid him in prison, that they pitied 
to see his simplicity, when they took him. Then they brought him to the 
Emperor's attorney where he dined. Then came he, the attorney, to the 
house of Poyntz, and sent away all that was there of Master Tyndale's, as 
well his books as other things, and from thence Tyndale was had to the 
castle of ViLvoRDE, eighteen English miles from Antwerp." 

No sooner was this infamous transaction known, than 
Tyndale's friends in Antwerp exerted their utmost in his 
behalf. By their influence, the House of Merchant Ad- 
venturers was induced to make a formal application to the 
court of Brussels, for his release. But through the in- 
difference or timidity of their chief officer, to whom the 
business was entrusted, nothing resulted from the attempt. 
An effort was also made to secure interest for him at the 
English Court, but with no decisive effect.* Alarmed 

* Thebald, at this time the confidential agent of Cranmer and Crumwell 
on the continent, makes report to his employers, in the manner of one who 
had been especially directed by them to watch the case. — (Anderson, vol. 
I., pp. 423—25.) To what can the change in Crumwell's policy be ascribed, 



302 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

for his revered friend, Thomas Pointz now resolved to try 
what could be done by his personal energy. He had a 
brother in England, John Pointz, who had been for twen- 
ty years in familiar intercourse with King Henry and his 
court, and was now a member of the royal household. To 
him he directed a letter, in which he boldly charges Tyn- 
dale's imprisonment upon the Papists, as part of a deep 
laid plot for the subversion of his Majesty's government, 
and of the religious reforms which it supported; and he 
urges his brother, either in his own person or through 
others, to bring the matter directly before the King. The 
honest warmth and fearlessness of this letter, equally free 
from pretention and servility, is an honorable index not 
only of the worth of the man, but of the spirit of the class 
to which he belonged. England, in the sixteenth century, 
had no such nobles as those princely-hearted merchants of 
hers, who had dared to search the Scriptures for them- 
selves ; none so free in thought, so bold in word, yet none 
so loyal to their King and country. 

This letter seems to have made a decided impression. 
Before the close of the next month a messenger was dis- 
patched from the English court, less perhaps from the 
wish to befriend Tyndale, though this was the ostensible 
object, than to look after those traitorous Englishmen 
mentioned by Pointz, as so busy at Louvain ; one of whom 
was already known, from Thebald's letters, as engaged in 
treasonable practices against the King. The relations of 
the two governments not allowing of direct communica- 
tion, letters were addressed by Crumwell to two distin- 

Dut the influence of Anne Bolcyn? But he was still too selfish, as Ornn- 
mer was too timid, to risk the favor of Henry by any direct and earnest 
efforts in behalf of Tyndale. 



MARTYRDOM OF TYNDALE. 303 

guislied persons who had great influence at the court of 
Brussels, requesting their friendly offices in the matter. 
Having with great difficulty obtained the desired letters, 
Pointz himself repaired with them to England, and after 
a month's detention for Crumweirs dispatches in reply, re- 
turned with all haste to Brussels. Here he laid his papers 
before the Council and awaited its decision. This was 
about the first of November, 1535. 

Things now looked very favorable for the venerable 
prisoner, and Pointz was in daily expectation that he 
would be delivered into his custody, when he was himself 
apprehended by the Procurer-General, and placed in strict 
confinement. This was the work of the infamous Phillips. 
Perceiving how the case was likely to turn, he could think 
of no better device, than boldly to accuse Pointz as an ad- 
herent of Tyndale, and the sole mover, from mere per- 
sonal and party motives, of the measures for his release. 
On this charge he had been seized ; and thus the good 
man, instead of welcoming his friend to liberty, found 
himself a prisoner, and in imminent hazard of his life. 

An imprisonment of more than three months followed, 
during which every obstacle was thrown in the way of his 
defence ; while he was loaded with enormous prison 
charges, for which immediate payment was demanded, 
without allowing him opportunity to procure the means. 
Satisfied that his temporal ruin, if not his death was re- 
solved on, Pointz determined to use his best chance for 
life and justice by making his escape. This he effected 
under cover of night ; and being well acquainted with the 
country, he eluded his pursuers, and found his way safely 
into England. 

This is the last attempt on record, for the deliverance 



304 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

of Tycdale. Could Pointz have effected anything after 
his return, it is safe to conclude that he would have done 
it at every personal risk. Cranmer and Crumwell were 
still high in power ; but she was gone, whose womanly 
and queenly heart had once infused somewhat of its own 
generous warmth and courage into theirs, and who had 
pleaded with the capricious King for truth and its cham- 
pions. The Reformer was now abandoned to the will of 
his enemies. 

The imprisonment of Tyndale seems not to have been 
as harsh, as that to which heretics had been subjected in 
England. By his pious efforts the jailor and his family 
were led to embrace the truth ; and their kind christian 
ministry did much, no doubt, to cheer his spirits and sof- 
ten the hardships of his situation. He was allowed the 
use of writing materials, and sustained an animated con- 
troversy with the Theological Faculty of Louvain. This 
"was permitted, however, for the purpose of drawing from 
him an avowal of sentiments, which might serve as a basis 
for his trial and condemnation. For under the imperial 
rule, even heretics could not be dealt with in the sum- 
mary style so much in vogue with Sir Thomas More and 
the English bishops. 

About a year and three-quarters thus passed away. At 
length, all things being ripe, his enemies pushed the matter 
to a conclusion. 

In- 1530, a very stringent decree against heresy had 
been issued at Augsburg under the Emperor's authority, 
directed particularly against the doctrine of justijicaiion 
by fait] I. This still remained in full force. Tyndale had 
long been known as the chief expositor of the obnoxious 
doctrine ; and his late controversy with the Doctors of 



MARTYRDOM OF TYNDALE. 305 

Louvain, had given occasion to a most explicit statement 
of his views. Now, the Privy Council of Brussels, which 
had full jurisdiction in all cases — religious as well as po- 
litical — was completely under the dominion of the priests, 
having for its President a high dignitary of the Romish 
church, and a bitter opposer of the truth — the Bishop of 
Palermo. The reigning Princess herself was a mere tool 
of the monks. Two years before, Erasmus had said that 
*' those animals were omnipotent at the court of Brussels." 
Such being the case — to say nothing of the gold with 
which Phillips was so liberally supplied, for enlightening 
the eyes of the ministers of justice — it would have been 
marvellous, indeed, had the unfriended prisoner received 
a favorable sentence. All the forms of justice were allowed 
him. He declined, however, the offered assistance of an 
advocate and procurer, saying that he would answer for 
himself. This he was permitted to do ; and we may be 
sure that his judges that day listened to an exposition of 
truth, such as they had seldom heard. But they had met 
to condemn, not to be convinced ; and though unable to 
confute his arguments, it was easy to prove him guilty 
tinder the decree of Augsburg. 

On Friday, the sixth of October, 1536, William Tyndale 
was led forth to die. Having been bound to the stake, he 
was first strangled, and his dead body then burned to ashes. 
His last words, ** uttered with fervent zeal, and in a loud 
voice, were these : * LoPcD, open the King of England's 
eyes!'" 

Thus perished, a victim to priestcraft, the purest of 
England's patriots, and the crown of her martyrs — the best 
and greatest man of his time I 



CHAPTER XII. 



TRIUMPH OF THE PRINCIPLE. 

Nothing is more common with the enemies of truth 
than to suppose, when the champion of a great principle 
is struck down, that the principle itself is dead. Especially 
does the history of Bible translation abound with exem- 
plifications of this remark. Every step of progress in this 
foundation work of Christian philanthropy — without which 
all others are but as blossoms without root, and out of which 
all others spring by an inevitable law — has been marked 
with martyrs. Not all martyrs at the stake, like Frith 
and Tyndale ; but martyrs as to their peace, their reputa- 
tion, the good will and respect of their fellow-men. And 
what have the ^' haters of light" accomplished by such a 
policy ? Nothing, except to verify that saying of our 
Lord, in which, just before his own bitter and shameful 
death, he announced the prime law of growth in his king- 
dom : '' Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and 
die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much 
fruit." 

For ten years, Tyndale had been subjected to a life of 
extremest privation and sufi'ering. An exile and a fugi- 
tive, with no certain home, pinched with poverty, reviled 
as a traitor, heretic, and blasphemer, hunted like a venom- 



TRIUMPH OF THE PRINCIPLE. 307 

ous reptile from one hiding place to another, he confessed, 
patient and heroic as he was, that " very death were more 
pleasant to him than life." And now, the purpose of his 
persecutors was accomplished. The great heart, and busy 
brain, and hand that never tired in the service of human- 
ity, w^ere turned to ashes, and scattered to the winds. 
This was their hour, and the power of darkness. That 
light blotted out, and they fancied that the hated influences 
it had called into being, would perish with it. 

At this point, let us look back a moment, and see how 
far their past experience justified such a hope. 

It was at the beginning of the year 1526, that the first 
copies of Tyndale's New Testament appeared in England. 
From the moment of its discovery in the hands of the 
young men at Oxford, ecclesiastical proscription, sustained 
by civil statutes " dreadful and penal," had been directed 
against it. Those convicted of the crime of reading, hear- 
ing, or circula-ting it, were fined, whipped, imprisoned, 
subjected to disgraceful public penance ; and if found un- 
yielding, were burned at the stake. Merchant ships were 
searched for it; international laws forbade its importa- 
tion ; it was bought up wholesale in foreign markets ; 
great church dignitaries presided over the bonfires in which 
it was consumed, as at a solemn religious festival. This 
policy had been pursued with a thoroughness and persist- 
ency unsurpassed in the history of religious persecution. 
And what was the result ? 

In 1529, a fifth edition of the proscribed book was cir- 
culating in England. Such had been the demand for the 
word of God, awakened within the space of three years ! 
In 1530, the year of TunstaPs great Bible-burning, the 
people were reading the Pentateuch, as well as the New 



308 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Testament ; and in the words of Hall, " Bibles came thick 
and threefold into England." Two years later, Sir Thos. 
More speaks of them as coming in " by the whole vats-full 
at once." In 1534, the Convocation itself was compelled, 
by influences which had become too strong to be over- 
borne, to ask that the King would order a translation of 
the Scriptures into English. In the Convocation of 1536, 
the lower House sent to their superiors a " protestation," 
respecting the alarming spread of heresy in the province 
of Canterbury. The specifications of false teaching amount 
to sixty-seven, and afford a most gratifying evidence of the 
progress of truth. The service of the Mass, worship of 
saints, auricular confession, penance, absolution, purgatory, 
are conceded to have become matters of common question. 
The fifth item declares, that " it is commonly preached, 
taught, and spoken, that all ceremonies accustomed in the 
church, which are not clearly expressed in Scripture, must 
be taken away, because they are men's inventions." The 
fifty-sixth complains, that ^■* by preaching, the people 
have been brought into the opinion and belief, that nothing 
is to be believed, except it can be proved expressly from 
Scripture !" But still more striking as an index of the 
times, is the language to which the assembled Bishops 
were obliged to listen from one of their own number — 
Edward Fox, Bishop of Hereford. Stokesly having 
offered to confute the new teaching respecting the sacra- 
ments — not only by Scripture, but by the old doctors and 
by the schoolmen also — Fox rose, and after referring to the 
King's command, that they should appeal in this matter to 
the Holy Scriptures alone, he addressed bis brethren in 
these noble words : 

** Tliink ye not tbtat wo can, by any sophistical subtilities, steal out of 



TRIUMPH OF THE rRINCIPLE. 309 

the world again, the light which every man doth see. Christ hath so light- 
ened the world at this time that the light of the Gospel hath put to flight 
all misty darkness : and it will, shortly, have the higher hand of all clouds, 
though we resist in vain never so much. The lay people do now know the 
Holy Scripture better than many of us. And the Germans have made the 
text of the Bible so plain and easy, by the Hebrew and Greek tongue, 
that now many things may be better understood, without any glosses at all, 
than by all the commentaries of the doctors. And, moreover, they have so 
opened these controversies by their writings, that women and children may 
wonder at the blindness and falsehood that hath been hitherto. Wherefore, 
ye must consider earnestly what ye will determine of these controversies, 
that ye make not yourselves to be mocked, and laughed to scorn of all the 
world ; and that ye bring them not to have this opinion of you, to think ever- 
more hereafter that ye have not one spark of learning nor yet of godliness 
in you. And thus shall ye lose all your estimation and authority with 
them which before took you for learned men and profitable members unto the 
commonwealth of Christendom. For that which you do hope upon, that 
there was never heresy in the church so great, but that process of time, 
with the power and authority of the Pope, hath quenched it — it is nothing 
to the purpose. But ye must turn (change) your opinion, and think this 
surely, that there is nothing so feeble and weak, so that it be true, but it 
shall find place, and be able to stand against all falsehood. 

*' Truth is the daughter of time, and time is the mother of truth. And 
whatsoever is besieged of truth cannot long continue ; and upon whose side 
truth doth stand that ought not to be thought transitory, or that it will 
ever fall. All things consist not in painted eloquence, and strength, or 
authority. For the truth is of so great power, strength and efficacity, that 
it can neither be defended with words, nor be overcome with any strength : 
but after she hath hidden herself long, at length she putteth up her head and 
appeareth." 

Stokesly's impatient reply to this and similar speeches, 
contained an undesigned, but most satisfactory confirma- 
tion of what Fox had asserted. *' Let us grant," said the 
incensed prelate, '' that the sacraments may be gathered 
out of the word of God ; yet are ye far deceived, if ye 
think that there is none other word of God, but that which 

EVERY SOUTER AND COBBLER DOTH READ IN HIS MOTHER 

TONGUE !" Before the close of the Convocation, a second 



310 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

petition to the King was agreed on, praying his Majesty, 
*' that he would graciously permit the use of the Scriptures 
to the laity, and that a new translation of it might be 
forthwith made for that end and purpose." A wonderful 
change, indeed, since the day when it was safe for them to 
declare all translations into the vernacular unlawful, and 
when the Scriptures were themselves denounced as heretical, 
and decreed " to be clean forbidden and banished forever 
out of the realm of England !" Not that the Romish 
Bishops were any more cordial in their hearts to such a 
measure than they had ever been ; but the advocates of 
the Bible had now become the stronger party. Their in- 
fluence was indeed still suflicient to prevent the recogni- 
tion of either of the existing translations ; and they 
trusted, by a ^' masterly inactivity" in preparing a new 
one, to put far off the evil day. But they had at least 
been compelled to concede, by repeated formal acts, the 
fundamental principle, that it is safe and right to give the 
laity the Scriptures in their mother tongue. The people, 
however, did not wait for them. From the year 1530, 
Tyndale's New Testament had been coming into England 
at the rate of two editions annually ; and at least nine or 
ten editions crowned the year of his martyrdom. 

Such had been the fruit of their opposition while the 
man still lived, who had been instrumental in giving the 
chief impulse to this mighty movement. Let us now see 
what they accomplished by his death. 

The events now to be related seem so strange, so far out 
of the common range of probabilities, that even the most 
skeptical can hardly fail to discern in them an unseen 
Power, carrying headlong the counsels of the crafty, and 
turning to its own beneficent ends the selfish policy of am- 



TRIUMPH OF THE PRINCIPLE. 311 

bitious statesmen, and the caprices of a cruel despot. To 
understand this part of our history, a little previous ex- 
planation is required. 

At the fall of Wolsey, the prospects of Thomas Crum- 
well, the most attached and distinguished of his adherents, 
seemed to have received their death blow. From this 
fate, he extricated himself by a single step, equally bold 
and sagacious, and planted his foot securely on the ladder 
of political promotion. Two days before the meeting of 
Parliament, he left the residence of his fallen master, say- 
ing to one of the household : '^ I shall make or mar ere I 
come again !" The very next day, he obtained an inter- 
view with Henry, and suggested to him that daring line 
of policy, which in due time added to his royal title that 
of " Supreme Head of the Church in England," and re- 
duced the proud clergy into the most submissive and most 
liberal of vassals. Another item of this great plan, was 
the replenishment of the King's coffers by the reduction 
of monasteries, and confiscation of their treasure ; but 
this had been deferred for prudential reasons to the year 
1535, when the King's necessities admitted of no farther 
delay. As a preliminary step, Crumwell — a layman and 
commoner, without high connections, or even an educa- 
tion to atone for want of rank — was, by an exercise of 
royal power, constituted the second man in the kingdom. 
By his oiB&ce as the King's ^* Vicegerent, Vicar-General, 
Commissary special and general," he not only took rank 
next to the royal family, and controlled the secular affairs 
of the realm, but had the right, in the King's absence, to 
preside in the Convocations of the clergy, and was Supe- 
rior of all the monasteries. This appointment was fol- 
lowed by the visitation and suppression, in the most sum- 



312 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

mar J style, of all monasteries, amounting to three hundred 
and seventy-six, whose income did not exceed £200 per 
annum ; thus augmenting the yearly royal revenue by the 
snug little sum of £75,200 — equivalent to more than 
a million dollars of our time. 

This was very gratifying ; but there were other conse- 
quences not so pleasant. Of course, we can find no fault 
with the dissolution of these haunts of idleness and profli- 
gacy. But the wholesome measure was effected in a man- 
ner most unjust and inhuman. Talleyrand would have 
said, it was worse than a crime ; it was a blunder ! Thou- 
sands of persons suddenly ejected from their comfortable 
homes, and turned loose upon the world with forty shil- 
lings in their hands, to seek living and shelter where they 
could, were not likely to be preachers of loyalty, or of the 
religion under whose name they were persecuted. The 
honest heart of the people, moreover, ever sides with the 
oppressed. Suffering becomes virtue in their eyes. And 
they are right ; for cruelty, in whatever form, or upon 
whomsoever exercised, is the very spirit of the lower re- 
gions. The secular clergy had already tasted of the royal 
mercy ; the higher monasteries might securely count upon 
their own doom as near at hand. The result was just 
what might have been expected. In the month of October, 
1536, a formidable insurrection burst forth, which threat- 
ened the country with all the horrors of a bloody civil 
war. In Lincolnshire, the rising was twenty thousand 
strong ; in Yorkshire, twice that number. 

By the firmness and energy of the government, the 
movement was soon quelled ; but it had given formidable 
evidence, that Popery's tough roots still held fast to the 
English soil, and that it would require more than laws of 



TRIUMPH OF THE PRINCIPLE. 313 

sequestration, or force of arms, to eradicate it. The keen 
eye of Crumwell saw what his master's had failed to per- 
ceive — that the vicious weed which could not be torn out 
from the earth of which it had so long held sole occupancy, 
must be grown out by a yet stronger plant. Its hold must 
be loosened from beneath, or the work on the surface would 
be done only to be repeated. Behold, then, the unpitying 
persecutor of Tyndale, the unscrupulous and worldly 
statesman, whose self-exaltation was the god of his wor- 
ship, making it one of his chief cares, amid the overwhelm- 
ing toils of state, and the engrossing schemes of personal 
ambition, to provide the people with the Word of God ! 
In this is revealed, more strikingly than in his most bril- 
liant strokes of policy, the penetrating intellect of this 
great practical genius. His ken went to the bottom of the 
elemental causes of national life, and discerned that the 
strength of the new order of things lay not in the external 
power of government, but in the moral sentiments and 
convictions of the people. 

Crumwell had already given his countenance and aid to 
the efforts of Cranmer and Cover dale. But henceforward, 
we perceive in his movements in this direction, the unwa- 
vering energy of a clear and settled purpose. A Bible, 
to be placed by authority in every church in England, to 
be read in public as a stated part of the religious instruc- 
tion of the people, while free access to it should be 
allowed to rich and poor, who might desire to read it for 
themselves, — such from this time became one of the prime 
objects of this great politician. From what follows we 
should judge, that he had converted Henry to the same 
view ; and in Archbishop Cranmer he would find an earn- 
est and efficient coadjutor, from purer motives. 

14 



314 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

But how was this Bible to be obtained ? It was hope- 
less to look for one from the Bishops ; Cranmer's, which 
from the very method employed in preparing it was unfit 
for a standard version, had fallen to the ground ; Cover- 
dale's was under a cloud, on account of its connexion with 
the murdered Queen. For the version which is to become 
THE FIRST AUTHORIZED English Bible, we must look away 
from England, to the man who had so recently sufi'ered 
martyrdom for having given it to her people. 

We have no direct information in regard to the progress 
which Tyndale had made in translating the Old Testament, 
at the time he was imprisoned in the castle of Vilvorde. 
Only the Pentateuch and Jonah had been given to the 
world ; and it is generally supposed, on the authority of 
Hall a cotemporary chronicler, that the translation had 
proceeded no farther than to the close of the historical 
books. But there are certain indisputable facts which it 
is difficult to harmonize with this supposition. 

Soon after he was thrown into prison, a folio edition of 
th« entire Bible, containing his translations already pub- 
lished, and completed from his manuscripts or some other 
source, was commenced in Germany by his friend and fel- 
low exile, John Bogers. It was finished within a year 
after his death, early in the summer of 1537, and published 
under the assumed name of Thomas Matthew, hence called 
Matthew's Bible. But the editor claimed it for bis friend, 
by inserting his initials, W. T., in conspicuous ornamen- 
tal letters, at the end of the Old Testament.* Why else 
should he have placed it there ; or on what other ground 
could the act be defended from the charge of fraud ? The 

* His New Testament was too well known to need any such index to its 
author. 



TRIUMPH OF THE PRINCIPLE. 315 

plea that Tyndale had not had time to complete the work, 
is not sustained by sufficient evidence. Four years had 
elapsed between the publication of the Pentateuch and his 
imprisonment ; and though his pen was indeed busy in 
other ways, we have no reason to think he had, on this ac- 
count, laid aside that which he considered pre-eminently 
his life-work. His nearly two years' imprisonment would 
most naturally have been devoted chiefly to its completion; 
and viewed in connexion with John Rogers' undertaking, 
we can hardly doubt it was so. The similarity of this 
portion of Matthew's Bible to that of Coverdale (pub- 
lished in 1535,) has given rise to the belief, that the ver- 
sion of the latter had furnished the books which Tyndale 
had not been able to translate. But, on the other hand, 
there are striking variations from that version ; and since 
Coverdale had adopted into it Tyndale's well known trans- 
lation of Jonah, verbatim^ it is quite as reasonable to sup- 
pose, that, during the period he was abroad preparing his 
Bible, he had access to the manuscripts of Tyndale. But, 
however this question may be decided, the larger and more 
important part of the newly edited version was, without 
dispute, the work of the martyred Beformer, the very 
work which for ten years had been proscribed in England. 
In the circumstances of its introduction into the king- 
dom, we see evidences of plan and concert, not to be 
mistaken. It had been about half carried through the 
press by private contributions of friends of the Gospel, 
when two prominent English printers — Grafton and Whit- 
church — came forward, and assumed the cost and risk of 
completing it. As soon as it left the press, Grafton hast- 
ened over the sea, with a single copy for Archbishop Cran- 
mer. Finding, on his arrival, that the Primate had just 



316 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

quitted London on account of the plague, he hastened 
after him to Forde, his country residence, in Kent. This 
could not have been before the 1st or 2d of August, since 
Cranmer was still on duty in London the 29th of July.* 
Yet on the 4th of August, he was prepared to endorse the 
entire translation, and in the warmest terms to recommend 
its adoption, as the Bible to be authorized by his Majesty 
for use in the churches, and for universal diffusion among 
the people. His letter on the subject to Lord Crumwell, 
is as follows : 

*'My especial good Lord, after most hearty commendations unto your 
Lordship ; these shall be to signify unto the same, that j^ou shall receive by 
the bringer thereof a Bible, both of a new translation and a new print, dedi- 
cated unto the King's Majesty, as farther appeareth by a pistle unto his 
Grace, in tjie beginning of the book, which, in mine opinion, is very well 
done ; and therefore I pray your Lordship to read the same. And as for 
the translation, so far as I have read thereof, I like it better than any other 
translation heretofore made ; yet not doubting thivt there may and will be 
found some fault therein, as you know no man ever did or can do so well, 
but it may from time to time be amended. 

" And forasmuch as the book is dedicated unto the King's Grace, and also 
great pains and labour taken in setting forth of the same, I pray you, my 
Lord, that you will exhibit the book unto the King's Highness, and obtain 
of his Grace, if you can, a license that the same may be sold and read of 
every person, without danger of any act, proclamation, or ordinance hereto- 
fore granted to the contrary, until such time that we, the Bishops, shall set 
forth a better translation, which I think will not bo till the day after dooms- 
day ! And if you continue to take such pains for the setting forth of God's 
Word, as you do, although in the mean season you suffer some snubs and 
many slanders, lies, and reproaches for the same, yet one day Ho will re- 
quite all together. And the same word, as St. John saith, which shall judge 
every man at the last day, must needs show favour to them that now do favour 
it. Thus, my Lord, right heartily fare you well. At Forde, the 4th day 
of August, [1537.] Your assured ever. — T. Cantuarien.^^ 

The Vicar-General was no less prompt. While all the 

* Anderson, Vol. I. p. 573. 



TRIUMPH OF THE PRINCIPLE. 817 

Bishops had been dispersed by fear of the plague, he had 
remained at his post, apparently to see this matter safely 
through. The absence of all the opposing prelates, left 
the field unobstructed, and he used the opportunity with 
his usual decision. Within eight days from the date of 
the above letter, Cranmer acknowledges the receipt of in- 
formation from his Lordship, that he had exhibited the 
translation to his Majesty, and had obtained his full assent 
to what had been requestei! Thus in less than a fort- 
night from the first arrival of Tyndale's whole Bible in 
England, it is decreed to be " set forthwith the King's 
MOST GRACIOUS LICENSE;" and also, that it " be sold and 
read of every person, without danger of any act, proclama- 
tion, or ordinance heretofore granted to the contrary!" 

The next year, Crumwell, ^'as Vicegerent unto the 
King's Highness," issued the following "injunctions" to the 
clergy, to be observed and kept, on pain of deprivation, 
sequestration of fruits, or such other coercion as to the 
King-s Highness, or his Vicegerent for the time being, 
shall seem convenient : 

First, "That ye shall provide before the ensuing feast of the Nativity, 
(December 25,) one book of the whole Bible, of the largest volume in Eng 
lish,* and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church, 
that ye have care of, where your parishioners may most conveniently re- 
sort to the same and read it ; the charges of which book shall be rateably 
borne between you, the parson and parishioners aforesaid — that is to say, 
the one half by you, the other half by them." 

Secondly, " That ye shall discourage no man, privily or apertly, [openly,] 
from the reading or the hearing of the said Bible ; but shall expressly pro- 
voke, stir, and exhort every person to read the same as that which is the 
very lively w^d of God, that every Christian person is bound to embrace, 
believe, and follow, if they look to be saved ; admonishing them neverthe- 

* Thus distinguishing Tyndale's from the two editions of Coverdale now in 
the market, those being of smaller size. — Anderson, Vol. II., p. 34, Note. 



318 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

less, to avoid all contention and altercation therein, but to use an honest so- 
briety in their inquisition of the true sense of the same, and to refer the ex- 
plication of the obscure places to men of higher judgment in the Scripture." 

Nor did Crumwell's eJBforts stop here. Already the 
Popish party had begun to rally. For a while the scales 
fluctuated — now to this side, now to that; but at length 
settled in favor of Crumwell's enemies. During the 
three years succeeding the time when he welcomed the 
vernacular Bible into England, all his powers were tasked 
to meet the strange and ever-shifting exigencies of the con- 
flict. Through this entire period, he urged on the cause 
of Bible-translation and circulation, as if that were one of 
the essential conditions of his political salvation. In 1538, 
before the first edition of Tyndale's Bible was exhausted, 
he had persuaded Henry to obtain from Francis I, per- 
mission for printing an edition of the English Bible in 
Paris, where it could be executed in much better style 
than in England. Thither he sent Coverdale and Bonner 
— then a loud advocate for vernacular translations — to 
5:evise the version and superintend the press, providing 
on the most liberal scale every thing necessary to the 
fullest success of the undertaking. At the end of six 
months, the interference of the Inquisition stopped the 
work, and the revisors fled, with what they could save, to 
England. But Crumwcll was not to be thus foiled. He 
dispatched agents to Paris, who returned not only with 
the presses and types, but even with the French printers ; 
and in some six weeks the work was again progressing on 
English soil. This event gave a great impulse to the 
press, and especially to the Bible interest in the kingdom; 
so that not only the interrupted edition was successfully 



TRIUMPH OF THE PRINCIPLE.^ 319 

completed, but it became the parent of many others, pub- 
lished in the heart of England. In the year 1539, no 
fewer than four editions of the entire Scriptures in Eng- 
lish, were issued under Crumwell's immediate patronage. 
During this same period, moreover, he was encouraging 
and aiding other translators to contribute their versions to 
the general stock ; thus, in every way, laboring to multiply 
Bibles among the people. 

A beautiful picture is given by Strype, in his Life of 
Cranmer,* of the influence of this diffusion and free use of 
the Scriptures. It was a jubilee among the poor of Eng- 
land, when, for the first time in the national history, they 
could listen, from Sabbath to Sabbath, to " the sweet and 
glad tidings of the Gospel," without the fear of prisons, 
the scourge, and the stake. *' It was wonderful," he says, 
" to see wdth what joy this book of God was received, not 
only among the learneder sort, and those that were noted 
for lovers of the reformation, but generally all England 
over, among all the vulgar and common people ; and with 
what greediness God's word was read, and what resort to 
places where the reading of it was. Every body that 
could, bought the book, and busily read it ; or got others 
to read it to them, if they could not themselves ; and divers 
more elderly people learned to read on purpose. And 
even little boys flocked among the rest to hear portions of 
the Holy Scriptures read." When has such an intellec- 
tual awakening of the masses ever been witnessed, in the 
whole history of the world, as the fruit of Popish policy ! 
If Crumwell was an unprincipled and ambitious man, he 
was. nevertheless, a wise legislator, and a true benefactor 
of the people. 

* Page 91. 



320 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

But the star which had shot so rapidly into the zenith, 
had long since culminated, and now suddenly sunk to rise 
no more. Henry's popish counsellors had now wholly 
gained his ear ; and Crumwell, by forwarding the marriage 
with Anne of Cleves, to whom the King had taken an in- 
superable disgust, had incurred his master's bitter resent- 
ment. On the tenth of June, he was arrested on charge 
of high treason ; and being condemned with scarcely the 
decent show of justice, — a fate, alas, too well merited by 
his own dealings in similar cases, — he was beheaded in the 
Tower, July 28, 1540. 

But as the death of Tyndale had not arrested the pro- 
gress of this glorious cause, so neither did the fall of its 
illustrious patron. New editions of the English Bible 
still issued from the press, and Henry again and again 
repeated his injunctions for its use in the public service of 
religion. So possessed had he become with the idea of 
diffusing it among his people, that Bishops Tunstal and 
Heath, most bitter opposers of vernacular translation, 
were compelled by his authority to affix their names as 
editors to two impressions of the great Bible. Immediate- 
ly after the publication of the injunctions of 1540, the 
bloody-hearted Bonner set up six large Bibles in St. Paul's, 
for the accommodation of those who wished to read, — such 
a passport at that time, was zeal in the cause, to royal 
favor ! The eagerness with which the people embraced 
this opportunity shows, that with all the Bibles published, 
little had yet been done towards supplying the demand 
for the word of God. " They came," it is said, '' instantly 
and generally to hear the Scriptures read. Such as could 
read with a clear voice, often had great numbers round 



TRIUMPH OF THE PRINCIPLE. 321 

them. Many set their children to school, and carried 
them to St. Paul's to hear." Most interesting must have 
been the groups collected, Sabbath after Sabbath, in the 
crypt of that ancient cathedral. The great folio Bibles, 
scattered at convenient distances through the vast dim 
interior, each chained to a massive pillar, the lamp above 
illuminating the reader and the black-letter page over which 
he bent, and the little congregation gathered close around, 
formed an apt emblem of the condition of England gene- 
rally at that time. 

This state of things could not long continue. The con- 
flict between light and darkness, now approaching its ter- 
mination, was not to close without another desperate strug- 
gle. Henry, in * graciously ' vouchsafing to his subjects 
the boon of reading the Scriptures, had not properly con- 
sidered the danger that, while so doing, they might acquire 
the pernicious habit of thinking for themselves. Against 
this he had taken every possible precaution, by connecting 
with permission to read and hear the Bible, strict charges 
to avoid all comment and discussion in respect to its con- 
tents ; and still more effectually by his Acts " to establish 
Christian quietness and unity," of which especially the one 
in 1539, known as the Six Articles, or more appropriately, 
as The Whip with six cords ^ was regarded as " an end of 
all controversy." The doctrines enjoined by this statute 
were, 1. Transubstantiation. 2. Communion under both 
kinds not necessary to salvation. 3. Priests may not 
marry, by the law of God. 4. Vows of chastity (celibacy) 
binding. 5. Private masses to be retained. 6. Auricular 
confession useful and necessary. Its penalties were : for 
denial of the first article, death at the stake, without pri- 

14* 



322 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

vilege of abjuration ; for the five others, death as a felon, 
or imprisonment during his Majesty's pleasure.* 

But it was beyond any human power, to join two things 
so opposed in their natures, as the study of the word of 
God, and servile submission to the will of man, in matters 
of religious faith. It is at the point where these rival 
influences meet in conflict, above all others, that the '' di- 
vinity within us " vindicates its heavenly origin, and the 
soul of the unlettered peasant, or of the timid woman, or 
even of the little child, rises up in the conscious dignity 
of a child of God, and claims here full equality with the 
proudest monarch. It was especially in regard to the first 
of these prescribed articles, — Transuhstantiation^ — that 
the readers of the Bible found it impossible to harmonize 
their views with those of the King. As from the time of 
Wicklifi'e to the separation of England from Rome, the re- 
jection of this doctrine had distinguished those who re- 
ceived the Scriptures as supreme authority, from those 
who acknowledged the supremacy of the church with the 
pope for its head ; so had it ever since distinguished them 
from those who acknowledged the supremacy of the church 
with the King for its head. It was the test-point in the 
trials of the Lollards both in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries ; and the blood of Bilney, Bainham, Frith, 
and many others, had flowed during this reign, as obla- 

* The same abject Parliament which authorized this bloody statute, as- 
sumed and made it law, that Parliament was competent to condemn to 
death persons accused of high treason, wWioutany previous trial or con- 
Jession ; and then, by another law, passed over this power into the hands 
of Henry,— enacting that " the King, with advice of his Council, might set 
forth proclamations, with pains and penalties in them, which were to be 
obeyed as if made by act of Parliament." He was thus constituted sol© 
proprietor of the lives and property of his subject*. 



TRIUMPH OF THE PRINCIPLE. 323 

tions to this monstrous dogma. So late as 1538, the 
learned and pious Lambert had perished for the same 
offence, after enduring a trial of " cruel mocking," at 
which Henry presided, in awful state, clad all in white 
— the symbol of the spotless purity of his faith ! The pas- 
sage of The Six Articles was the signal for a fresh onset 
upon the adherents of the Scriptures. The Bishops, who 
were charged with the office of carrying the statute into 
effect, sprang like unleashed blood-hounds on the prey. 
Within fourteen days they had indicted five hundred per- 
sons in London alone ; and it was clear that the number 
of offenders would soon exceed the capacity of the city 
prisons. This was considerably more than Henry had 
asked of the zeal of his bishops ; for he wished to strike a 
wholesome terror into the community by a few examples, 
not to make a wholesale massacre of his subjects. By the 
advice of Crumwell (the year before his death), he repeated 
the expedient of Henry V. in a similar case ; and, by a 
T0J3.1 pardon, quashed the indictment, so that of the five 
hundred accused, not one was brought to trial, and the 
fiendish attempt only served to bring out more distinctly 
the strength of the party it had sought to crush. Still 
the statute remained in force, and the war with the '*' Sa- 
cramentarians " was waged, if not on so bold a scale, with 
no less malignity, to the close of Henry's reign. 

At length the King seems to have been convinced, that 
he could not establish his own will as the standard of faith 
among his people, while they were allowed the use of the 
Bible. It was therefore enacted by Parliament in 1543, 
^' that all manner of books of the Old and New Testament 
in Englii:h, of Tyndale^s crafry, false, and untrue trans- 
lation^ should by authority of this*Act, clearly and utterly 
be abolished and extinguished, and forbidden to be kept 



324 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

and used in this realm, or elsewhere, in any of the King's 
dominions." 

And farther, ^* that no manner of persons, after the first 
of October, should take upon them to read openly to 
others, in any church or open assembly, within any of the 
King's dominions, the Bible or any part of Scripture in 
English, unless he was so appointed thereunto by the King 
or by any ordinary, on pain of suffering one month's im- 
prisonment." 

And farther, ^' That no women, except noble women and 
gentle women, might read the Bible to themselves alone ; 
and no artificers, apprentices, journeymen, servingmen, of 
the degrees of yeomen, husbandmen, or laborers, were to 
read the Bible or New Testament to themselves or any 
other, privately or openly, on pain of one month's impris- 
onment." 

How vividly do these enactments mirror the times ; re- 
vealing the wide-spread and inextricable hold which the 
Bible had gained upon the English masses ! When ** ap- 
prentices, journeymen, servingmen, husbandmen, and la- 
borers " had once learned to read the Bible, it was certain 
that no laws could recall it from the nation's hands. So 
the imperious monarch found it ; for three years later, this 
statute was followed by another still more sweeping, viz. 
*^that from henceforth, no man, woman, or person, of what 
estate, condition, or degree he or they shall be, shall, after 
the last day of August next ensuing, receive, have, take, 
or keep in his or their possession, the text of the New 
Testament of Tyndale's or Coverdale's, nor any other that 
is permitted by the Act of Parliament, made in the session 
of Parliament holden at Westminster, in the thirty-fourth 
and thirty-fifth year of tis Majesty's most noble reign." 



TRIUMPH OF THE PRINCIPLE. 325 

Eight days after the passage of this Act, July 16, 
1546 the heroic Aane Askew perished with three 
companions at the stake, for refusing to acknowledge Hen- 
ry's Popish doctrine of the Mass. How entirely the recep- 
tion of the Scriptures, as supreme authority, was identified 
with rejection of the special dogmas of his Roman-English 
church, is seen from the dying words of this intrepid 
woman : " Finally, I believe all those Scriptures to be 
true which he hath confirmed with his most precious blood. 
Yea, and as St. Paul saith, those Scriptures are sufficient 
for our learning and salvation, that Christ hath left here 
with us ; so that I believe we need no unwritten veri- 
ties to rule his Church with. Therefore, look, what he 
hath said unto me with his own mouth in the Holy Gos- 
pel, that have I, with God's grace closed up in my heart ; 
and my full trust is, as David saith, that it shall be a lan- 
tern to my footsteps."* 

On the 28th of January, 1547, Henry VIII was sum- 
moned to meet the victims of his personal resentment, and 
of his murderous religious zeal, — a fearful host ! — at the 
bar of the righteous Judge. His son Edward VI, the 
English Josiah, succeeded to the throne. The stream 
which had been for a while repressed now burst forth 
with gathered strength ; and this short reign, less than six 
and a half years, was signalized by at least fourteen editions 
of the whole Bible, and thirty-six of the New Testament.! 
A brief interruption succeeded this period of prosperity, 
during the reign of Mary. But from that time to the 
present, a period of three hundred years, the Anglo-Saxon 
race has never seen the day when its rich and its poor 
might not read, in their own tongue wherein they were 
♦ Andergou. toI. II, p. 198. f I^- 237. 



326 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

born, unmolested by Church or State, the wonderful works 

of God ! THE PRINCIPLE HAD TRIUMPHED. 



Wickliffe gave England her first Bible; Tyndale her 
first Bible translated from the original Hebrew and G-reek 
Scriptures. Thus was fully developed the great Protest- 
ant principle, announced by Wickliffe nearly a century 
and a half before. For the same principle which demands 
the Inspired Word as the sole standard of religious faith, 
demands also the most exact representation of it which it 
is possible to obtain. This is obvious on a moment's 
thought. Every translation, however able and honest, is 
but a human reflexion of God's revelation of truth, and as 
such, is liable to the imperfection which attaches to every 
thing human. The philological principles of the transla- 
tor may sometimes mislead him, or his religious creed may 
bias his judgment of words ; or, in process of time, through 
the vicissitudes of language, or corruptions in the church, 
renderings which were once a just expression of the origi- 
nal may come to convey a false meaning. These consid- 
erations apply with double force to a second hand trans- 
lation, every remove from the original making the conclu- 
sions proportionably unreliable. Hence Wickliffe's ver- 
sion, venerable as the first English Bible, and endeared by 
the associations of a hundred years of persecution, was at 
once set aside on the appearance of another drawn directly 
from the inspired sources. 

But to accept any version, to stand for all time in place 
of the sacred originals, was contrary to tlie spirit of primi- 
tive English Christianity. The glass through whicli the 
grand outlines of truth could be discerned, was dear for so 
much of the truth as it revealed ; another, which revealed 



TRIUMPH OF THE PRINCIPLE. 327 

more, was dearer still. We shall observe the influence of 
this spirit through the whole subsequent history of Bible 
translation in England. The Christian scholars of that 
age were fired with a generous, sacred emulation to render 
THE People's Bible a perfect reflexion of the inspired 
Word. In the track of Tjndale's noble version sprang 
up a long line of revisions and translations, which were 
gratefully accepted by the church of Christ as independent 
witnesses, of whom one might correct the errors of another, 
and whose agreeing testimony made the truth doubly certain. 
But for the New Testament of Tyndale a peculiar honor 
was reserved. It furnished not only the basis, but, in 
great part, the substance of all that followed. To a com- 
mand of Greek learning surpassed by none of his age, Tyn- 
dale added those higher qualities of a translator of the 
Scriptures so eminently possessed by his great predecessor, 
a mind of large grasp and earnest force, illuminated by a 
heart which knew birt the single sublime aimto ascertain 
the revealed will of God and make it worthily known to man. 
A mind so qualified for the task could not but express itself 
with a noble freedom, a simple majesty, in harmony with the 
inspired utterances of truth. The successors of Tyndale 
recognized in his translation that impress of the master 
spirit ; and while they corrected its errors without scruple, 
by the increasing light of sacred scholarship, they trans- 
ferred the body of it, unchanged, into their own versions. 
Like a gem repeatedly new cut and polished, it has been 
handed down from generation to generation, the most precious 
heir-loom of the English race ; and we, at this day, read in 
large portions of our common version, the very words with 
which Tyndale clothed the Scriptures for the men of his 
own age, in those times of conflict and of blood. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



COVERDALE'S BIBLE. 

This version deserves special notice, as one of the most 
marked indications of the new impulse in favor of vernacu- 
lar translations effected by Tjndale's early labors. It 
claims veneration^ too, as the first translation of the whole 
Bible circulated in England. For, though strictly the off- 
spring of the state of public opinion created by his greater 
contemporary, and commenced several years after the pub- 
lication of Tyndale's New Testament and Pentateuch, 
Coverdale's version made its appearance some two years 
prior to Rogers' edition of Tyndale's Bible. 

Miles Coverdale was educated at Cambridge, and was a 
pupil and intimate friend of Barnes, then the great orna- 
ment of the University in liberal learnings and the chief 
leader at Cambridge of the religious party, stigmatized by 
the llomanists as ^' the new learning." When Barnes was 
arrested by Cardinal Wolscy, Coverdale. was one of those 
who stood faitlifully by their teacher, following him to 
London, and assisted in preparing his defence. It is sup- 
posed that the favor of Crumwell, then 2i protege of Wol- 
sey, Becurcd him from the immediate consequences of so 
bold a step. But in 1528, having been accused of preaching 



COVERDALES BIBLE. 329 

against the confessional, the worship of images, and the 
doctrine of transubstantiation, he was obliged to withdraw 
from England, and his steps cannot be distinctly traced for 
several succeeding years. Foxe states that he joined Tyn- 
dale on the continent, and assisted him in the translation 
of the Pentateuch ; but of this there is no reliable proof. 

It is not certain at what time he commenced his own 
translation. He seems to have been moved to the under- 
taking by a deep feeling of the need of the Word of God 
in English, as the only remedy for the moral wretchedness 
of the nation ; joined to a fear that Tyndale would not be 
able, under the heavy pressure of persecution, to complete 
the great work which he had begun. Yet such was his 
modest estimate of his own qualifications for such a task, 
that he would not, he avers, have assumed the responsibil- 
ity, but for the urgent solicitations of those with whose 
wishes he felt bound to comply. In this, doubtless, he 
refers to his great friend and patron, Thomas Crumwell. 

In his Prologue to the Christian reader, prefixed to his 
translation, he thus explains his feelings and motives : 

''Considering how excellent knowledge and learning an interpreter of 
Scripture ought to have in the tongues, and pondering also mine own insuffi- 
ciency therein, and how weak I ain to perform the office of translator, I was 
the more loath to meddle with this work. Notwithstanding, when I considered 
how great pity it was that we should want it so long, and called to remem- 
brance the adversity of them which were not only of ripe knowledge, but would 
also with all their hearts have performed that they begun, if they had not had 
impediment ; considering, I say, that by reason of their adversity, it could 
not so soon have been brought to an end, as our most prosperous nation 
would fain have had it ; these and other reasonable causes considered, I was 

the more bold take it in hand But to say the truth before God, 

it was neither my labor or desire to have this work put in my hand ; nev- 
ertheless it grieved me that other nations should be more plenteously pro- 
vided for with the Scriptures in their mother tongue than we ; therefor© 



330 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

when I was instantly required, though I could not do it as well as I would, 
I thought it yet my duty to do my best and that with a good will." 

It had been argued that a variety of translations must 
necessarily endanger the unity of the faith. He meets this 
objection by an appeal to Christian history : 

" "Whereas some men think now that many translations make division m 
the faith and in the people of God, yet it is not so ; for it was never better 
with the congregation of God, than when every church almost had the Bible 
of a sundry translation. Among the Greeks, had not Origen a special trans- 
lation ?..... Beside the seventy interpreters, is there not the translation 
of Aquila, of Theodotio, of Symachus and of sundry other 7 Again, among 
the Latin men thou findest that every one almost used a special translation ; 
for insomuch as every bishop had the knowledge of tongues, he gave his 

diligence to have the Bible of his own translation Therefore ought 

it not to be taken as evil, that such men as have understanding now in our 
time, exercise themselves in the tongues, and give their diligence to trans- 
late out of one language into another. Yea, we ought rather to give God 
thanks therefor, which through his spirit stirreth up men's minds, so as to 
exercise themselves therein. Would God it had never been left off after 
the time of St. Augustine ; then should we never have come into such blind- 
ness and ignorance, and into such errors and delusions 

Seeing then that this diligent exercise of translating doth so much good, 
and edifyeth in other languages, why should it do evil in ours ? Doubtless 
like as all nations, in the diversity of speeches, may know one God in the 
unity of faith, and be one in love ; even so may diverse translations under- 
stand one another, and that in the head articles and ground of our most blessed 
faith, though they use sundry words. Wh^efore, we think, we have great 
occasion to give thanks unto God, that he hath opened unto his church the 
gift of interpretation and of printing, and that there are at this time so 
many, which, with such diligence and faithfulness, interpreteth the Scrip- 
ture to the honor of God and the edifying of his people." 

Coverdale only claimed for his version, according to his 
title page, that it was translated out of '' Douch and 
Latin." He speaks also of having had by him five several 
translations, and of having " followed his interpreters." 
He was a respectable Hebrew scholar, and doubtless had 
constant reference to the text of the original ; but he seems 
not to have felt suflScient reliance on his own scholarship, 



COVERDALE S BIBLU. 331 

to venture on a really independent translation. For the 
same cause his version compares ill with Tyndale's in re- 
spect to style ; wanting that bold step and that rich ex- 
pressiveness, which can only come from the actual contact 
of the translator's mind with the thoughts he is to render, 
in their original forms. Yet his version is, in the main, 
clear and correct, and in some passages shows a more felic- 
itous rendering than any which came after. Its most se- 
rious fault is found in its conformity, in some important 
particulars, to the Latin Vulgate. 

The King's license had been obtained for this Bible ; 
and it was dedicated to him '' and his most dearest, just 
wife, Anne." The decline of the Queen's influence, and her 
fall soon after its appearance in England, threw a cloud 
for awhile over the enterprise. But after it had been long de- 
layed in the hands of the bishops, to whom Henry had com- 
mitted it for examination, he at length demanded their 
opinion. They replied that it had many faults. "But," 
said he, " are there any heresies maintained thereby ?" 
When they replied that there were none as they had per- 
ceived, — '' Then in God's name," cried the impatient mon- 
arch, " let it go abroad among our people."* Subsequent- 
ly, there is reason to believe, an injunction was issued by 
Crumwell for its use in churches ; but from some cause 
this never went into effect. The version found, however, 
considerable circulation, so that a new edition was pub- 
lished the next year ; but it never received very general fa- 
vor, and was soon superseded by that of Tyndale. 

How far Coverdale was from the arrogance and envy of 
narrow minds, is seen in the fact that he entered most cor- 
dially into Crumwell's plan, in 1538, of republishing Tyn- 
dale's version at Paris, and making it the authorized Bi- 
* Bagster's edition of Coverdale's Bible, Memoir, p. 13. 



332 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

ble of the kingdom, to be employed in the public seiTice 
of religion to the exclusion of every other. He himself 
went to Paris as Reviser and Corrector of the press; and 
had well nigh lost his life in the service, through, the 
opposition of the French Inquisitors. The work was 
completed in England under his supervision, and was known 
as the Great Bible, ^^ appointed to be read in churches." 

In 1 55 1 , under King Edward, Coverdale was made Bishop 
of Exeter. During Mary's reign he was obliged to seek re- 
fuge on the continent ; but on the accession of Elizabeth 
he returned to England, where he was joyfully received by 
the friends of the Reformation. He would now have re- 
gained his honors, but for his conscientious scruples in re- 
gard to certain church ceremonies, strenuously insisted on 
by the ruling powers, but which, in his view, countenanced 
dangerous popish errors. This subject will be more par- 
ticularly noticed hereafter. 

Even the rectory, which had been given to Coverdale 
as a provision for his old age, was at length taken from 
him for his steadfast refusal to obey the Act of Uniformity. 
He continued to preach, however, and the name of Father 
Coverdale was dear to the common people as that of a 
faithful, honest and affectionate teacher of the way of sal- 
vation. He died in honorable poverty May 26th, 1567, 
in the 8 1 st year of his age. '' He was buried in the Church 
of St. Bartholemew, behind the Royal Exchange; and his 
funeral was attended by multitudes, who reverenced his 
memory and bewailed his loss." 

His writings have been collected and published by the 
Parker Socict}^, and form an interesting monument of his 
own learning and piety, and of the spirit of the age in 
which he lived. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



TAVERNER'S BIBLE. 

Among the young men of Oxford, who in 1526 were im- 
mured in Cardinal College cellar for reading Tjndale's 
New Testament, was one by the name of E-ichard Taver- 
ner. He was especially implicated, as having been engaged 
in the attempt to conceal the obnoxious books under the 
floor of a fellow-student's room. On account, however, of 
his skill in music, he was soon released by Wolsey, who 
was a lover of all elegant accomplishments, and probably 
thought it a pity to spoil so fine a voice by the damp air 
of the cellar. He then devoted himself to the study of 
law ; and was admitted to practice at the Inner Temple. 

Though not distinguished during the times of severe 
persecution which followed, Taverner seems to have re- 
mained a faithful adherent of the truth, and particularly 
of the cause of Bible translation. In 1534 he became at- 
tached to the court, under the patronage of Crumwell, and 
by him was raised to an office of some responsibility and 
honor. It was while he was still occupying this post that 
his patron, acting on his now ruling idea that the only se- 
curity against the revival and triumph of the Popish party 
in England was to flood the country with Bibles, urged 



334 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Taverner, who was an expert Greek scholar, to undertake 
a revision of Matthew's Bible, of which he was desirous to 
publish a new edition. The result was the work known as 
Taverner's Bible ; which was, according to Bishop Bale, 
*' neither a bare revisal, nor yet strictly a new version, but 
something between both." His dedication to the King, in 
which he explains his reasons for undertaking the work, is 
an interesting indication of the spirit of the time in regard 
to Bible translation : 

" Your Grace never did anything more acceptable unto God, more profit- 
able unto the advancement of true Christianity, more displeasant to the ene- 
mies of the same, and also to your Grace's enemies, than when your Majesty 
licensed and willed the most sacred Bible, containing the unspotted and 
lively word of God, to be in the English tongue set forth to his Highness' 
subjects. It cannot be denied, however to the setting forth of it some men 
have neither undiligently nor yet unlearnedly travailed, that some faults 
have escaped their hands. But it is a work of so great difficulty so abso- 
lutely to translate the whole Bible that it be faultless, I fear it would scarce 
be done of one or two persons, but rather required both a deeper con- 
ferring of many learned wits together, and also a juster time and longer lei- 
sure ; but forasmuch as the printers hereof were very desirous, to have the 
Bible come forth as faultless and emendently as the shortness of time 
for the recognizing of the same would require, they desired me, for default 
of a better learned, diligently to overlook and peruse the whole copy ; and 
in case I should fmd any notable default that needed correction, to amend the 
same according to the true exemplars, which thing according to my talent, 
I have gladly done." 

The work was published with King Henry's license, in 
whose reign it passed through several editions. It con- 
tinued to be printed occasionally as late as 1551, after 
which there seems to have been no farther demand for it, 
and it disappears from the list of versions printed for use 
among the people. 



CHAPTER XV. 



CRANMER'S BIBLE: THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 

The name of Cranmer has already been frequently men- 
tioned in connexion with the early history of Bible trans- 
lation in England. He was educated at Magdalen college, 
Cambridge, and was one of those young men selected by 
Wolsey, for their superior talents and scholarship, to adorn 
his new college at Oxford. But at the risk of seriously 
offending the great Cardinal, Cranmer declined the honor 
and the increased emolument, preferring the greater quiet 
and independence of his Cambridge home. He afterwards 
became Divinity Lecturer in Magdalen College, and was 
there held in the highest esteem for his learning and 
virtue. 

While yet a student, Cranmer, like so many other edu- 
cated young men of that period, was led by his own spirit- 
ual wants to an earnest study of the Scriptures ; and from 
that time, the written word of God was the object of his 
profoundest veneration. Being appointed by his College 
one of the Examiners of candidates for degrees, as Batch- 
elors and Doctors of Divinity, he was accustomed to make 
their knowledge of the Scriptures a test of admission ; and 
if this was found unsatisfactory, to turn them back, with 



336 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the advice to spend some years longer in becoming ac- 
quainted with the book '^wherein the knowledge of God, and 
the grounds of divinity lay." The Friars were particularly 
deficicDt in this respect, their sole training being in the 
subtleties of the schoolmen; and Cranmer's strictness 
subjected him to their mortal enmity. " Yet some of the 
more ingenuous," says Strype,* *' afterwards rendered him 
great and public thanks for refusing them; whereby, being 
put upon a study of God's word, they attained to more 
sound knowledge in religion." 

From his elevation to the Primacy, in 1533, his influ- 
ence was steadily directed towards the object of securing 
to the nation at large, the free use of the Bible in English. 
His earnest, but unsuccessful efforts to enlist the Bishops 
in the work, have already been noticed ; as well as the 
generous ardor with which he welcomed Tyndale's Bible 
in 1537, and his exultation when permission was at length 
obtained from the capricious Henry that all his subjects, 
high and low, rich and poor, might read the word of God. 

In 1538, the first reprint of Tyndale's whole Bible was 
commenced in Paris and finished in London, under the 
oversight of Coverdale. In 1540, another was published 
under the immediate superintendence of Cranmer, which, 
on account of the critical comparison of the translation 
with the Greek and Hebrew text which it exhibits, takes 
rank as an important contribution to the work of Bible 
translation. This is the work known as Cranmer's Bible. 
In the Old Testament, particularly, the rendering is often 
an improvement on that of Tyndale ; though elsewhere, it 
shows the influence of unreliable guides in Hebrew philo- 

* Life of Cranmer. 



337 

logy. "Whether the changes were from Cranmer himself, 
or from scholars emplo^^ed by him, is not known; but his 
learning justifies the supposition that they came from his 
own hand. Its great blemish is the frequent introduction 
of readings from the Vulgate ; though these are distinguished 
by being enclosed in brackets, and printed in a different 
type. The version of the Psalms, given in Cranmer^s 
Bible, is the one still retained in the Book of Common 
Prayer in the Church of England.* The Church Psalter 
does not, however, distinguish the additions from the Vul- 
gate ; in the fourteenth Psalm, for example, three whole 
verses are there inserted, with no indication that they do 
not belong to the Hebrew text. 

The Prologue to this Bible, written by Cranmer him- 
self, is a most earnest appeal to the laity of all classes, 
to improve their present opportunities of becoming ac- 
quainted with the Holy Scriptures, as the great remedy 
for all the evils of human life. Even among them were 
still to be found many, who retained the prejudices in which 
they had been trained against the use of the Bible by the 
laity, and who refused to read or hear the Scripture in 
the vulgar tongue. 

" I would marvel much," he writes, " that any man should be do mad 
as to refuse, in darkness, light ; in hunger, food ; in cold, fire ; . . . save 
that I consider how much custom and usage may do. So that if there were 
a people, as some write, de cymeriis, which never saw the sun, by rea- 
son that they be situated far towards the north pole, and be inclosed and 
overshadowed with high mountains ; it is credible and like enough, that if, 
by the power and wDl of God, the mountains should sink down and give 
place, so that the sun might have entrance to them, at first some of them 
would be offended therewith. And the old proverb affirmeth, that after til- 
lage of com was first found, many delighted more to feed of mast and acorns, 

* Anderson claims that it was taken from Tyndale's (Matthew's) Bible ; 
but erroneously, as any one may convince himself by a slight comparison. 



338 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

wherewith they had been accustomedj than to eat bread made of good 
com." 

After quoting at large from St. Chrysostom, to prove that 
the laity, as those who are most exposed to the trials and 
temptations of life, being '^ in the midst of the sea of 
worldly wickedness, standing in the forefront of the host, 
and nighest to the enemy," need the means of defence and 
succor ready at hand, far more than those who lead a life 
of retirement and spiritual meditation, he proceeds : 

•'Now if I should in like manner bring forth what the self-same doctor 
speaketh in other places, and what other doctors and writers say concerning 
the same purpose, I might seem to you to write another Bible, rather than 
make a Preface to the Bible. Wherefore, in few words to comprehend the 
largeness and utility of the Scriptures, how it containeth fruitful instruction 
and erudition for every man ; if anything be necessary to be learned, of 
the holy Scriptures we may learn it ; if falsehood shall be reproved, thereof 
we may gather wherewithal ; if anything to be corrected and amended, if 
there need any exhortation or consolation, of the Scriptures we may well 
learn it. In the Scriptures be the fat pastures of the soul — therein is no 
venomous meat, no unwholesome thing ; they be the very dainty and pure 
feeding. . . Here all manner of persons — men and women, young, old, learn- 
ed, unlearned, rich, poor, priests, laymen, lords, ladies, oflBcers, tenants, and 
mean men ; virgins, wives, widows, lawyers, merchants, artificers, husband- 
men, and all manner of persons, of what estate or condition soever they be — 
may in this book learn all things what they ought to believe, what they 
ought to do, and what they should not do, as well concerning Almighty 
God, as also concerning themselves, and all other." 

These were wonderful words to be heard, in that day, 
from the highest dignitary of the English church. The 
minute specification of various classes and conditions, is 
not without important meaning ; and recognizes a princi- 
ple far in advance of the opinions then generally current 
among the great. The good Archbishop seems resolved, 
that no individual shall feel himself excluded or excused 
from the new-spread feast, for lack of a special invitation. 
This is Cranmer's true glory, his fervent love for the in- 



cranmer's bible : the Anglican church. 339 

spired word, and his unwearied efforts to make the divine 
gift common alike to alL Here he showed himself the 
true Christian, the true Protestant. 

It is, moreover, greatly to his honor, that his anxiety to 
strenghteu the newly established order of things, was 
allowed to affect so little his renderings of Scripture. A 
few ecclesiastical terms, which unfortunately Tyndale had 
* perpetuated, in contrariety to his general principles of 
translation, were likewise retained by Cranmer. But the 
word " church" occurs only once in his version, and then 
merely as the designation of a sacred building, (Acts 
19 : 37,) for which also he had the authority of Tyndale 
and Coverdale. In all other cases, he uniformly renders 
ecdesia by the noble and intelligible word " congrega- 
tion."* 

The year 1542 furnished an index, of a novel character, to 
the unwearied efforts of the Popish prelates to frustrate 
his efforts in behalf of the Bible ; namely, an order from 
the King for a revision, hy the bishops^ of the authorized 
translation of the New Testament. When the people 
were destitute of a Bible, Cranmer had vainly tried to en- 
list them in the work of preparing one ; now, when the 
work had been carried through, against their most strenu- 
ous efforts, they were ready to step in and do what they 
could to mar it. Sorely against his will, the Archbishop 
was obliged to apportion the task among them ; and then 
followed meeting after meeting to decide on the plan of 
execution. At the sixth meeting, Gardiner — who, no 

* In Bagster's English Hexapla, Cranmer is incorrectly represented as 
giving to 1 Tim. 4 : 14 the strange rendering : " Laying on of hands by 
authority of the priesthood." In the original edition of 1640, a copy of 
which is before me, it stands as in Tyndale : " Laying on of the hands of 
an elder." 



340 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

doubt, was the contriver of the scheme — brought in a list 
of above one hundred Latin words,* ^' which for their genu- 
ine and native meaning, and for the majesty of the matter 
in them contained," he desired might be retained untrans- 
lated, or Englished with the least possible alteration, in the 
new revision. This design, if effected, would have given 
the people a Bible in name, while it deprived them of the 
substance. ^' Wanting," says Fuller, '^^ the power to keep 
the light of the Word from shining, he sought, out of 
policy, to put it in a dark lantern." Thus too, according 
to the old historian, he sought " to teach the laity their 
distance ; who, though admitted into the outer court of com- 
mon matter, were yet debarred entrance into the holy of ho- 
lies of these mysterious expressions, reserved only for the 
understanding of the high priest to pierce into them. More- 
over, this made G-ardiner not only tender, but fond to have 
these words* continued in kind without translation, because 
the profit of the Romish church was deeply in some of 
them concerned. Witness the word ^ penance,' which, ac- 
cording to the vulgar sound, contrary to the original sense 
thereof, was a magazine of will-worship, and brought in 
much gain to the priests, who were desirous to keep that 
word, because that word kept them." Cranmer, having 
obtained this evidence of the purpose they had in view, 
made Henry fully acquainted with it ; and as the result, 
was empowered to inform the Convocation, that " it was 
the King's will and pleasure" that the examination of the 
entire translation of the Old and New Testaments should 
be committed to the Universities. Thus the work was 
rescued from the hands of its enemies ; but it does not ap- 
pear that the Universities were ever troubled with it. 

* Quoted at length in Fuller's Church History, Vol. II, p. 108. 



cranmer's bible : the Anglican church. 341 

And jet, with all this zeal for faithful vernacular trans- 
lations, Cranmer only half understood the principles of 
Protestantism. With one hand he dispersed Bibles, with- 
out stint or restriction, among the people ; with the other, 
he laid a yoke on their necks, hardly more tolerable than 
that which their fathers wore ; for it equally denied the 
supremacy of the individual conscience. The Romish 
bishops had punished dissent from their church ; and this 
was accounted wrong, because it was the church of Anti- 
christ. Protestant bishops punished dissent from their 
church ; and this was right, because it was the true church 
of Christ ! It is amusing, though humiliating, to read the 
records furnished by the admiring Strype, of the contests 
between Cranmer and the stout Bishop of Winchester, 
during the reign of Edward VI. Gardiner had been a sad 
thorn to the pious Primate in the previous reign ; but now 
the latter had it all his own way, and he resolved to reduce 
the turbulent prelate to conformity with the true faith. 
When he could not be convinced by argument, he was sent 
to the Fleet. Being " somewhat straitly handled," he 
complained to the Lord Protector that he was allowed no 
friend or servant, no chaplain, barber, tailor nor physician ; 
** a sign," says the sagacious biographer, '^ that he gave 
them high provocation." This was in 1547. 

After a three years' imprisonment, " it was now thought 
time," as is quietly remarked, '^ that he be spoken withal." 
Accordingly, he was brought up before the King's council, 
and articles of submission proposed for his subscription, 
condemning all the essential doctrines and practices of Ro- 
manism, and approving whatever had been done during the 
previous and present reigns for their suppression. We 



342 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

cannot but have some respect for the man who, with liberty 
and honor on one side,* and disgrace and a prison on the 
other, could maintain with such steadfast spirit his right 
to his own opinions. "After a great deal of pains and pa- 
tience," on the part of the Archbishop and his fellow-com- 
missioners, maintained unavailingly through two and 
twenty sessions, the refractory bishop was condemned to 
a still stricter confinement, in a meaner prison, denied all 
intercourse with his friends, and the use of books, pen, 
ink, and paper ; " that he may not write his detestable 
purposes, but be sequestered from all conferences, and from 
all means that may serve him to practice in any way." 
From this imprisonment, he was not released till the ac- 
cession of Mary ; and though we must detest the fiendish 
cruelty of his spirit, we cannot much wonder, that when 
his turn came to be in power, " he sufficiently wracked 
his revenge against the good Archbishop, and the true re- 
ligion." 

Nor was such severity confined to Papists, The pious 
and zealous Hooper, Bishop elect of Gloucester, fully agreed 
with Cranmer as to doctrine and discipline ; only it went 
against his conscience to wear the vestments identified 
with the superstitious and idolatrous rites of Popery. 
Arguments proved equally fruitless with him, as with 
Gardiner ; and on the report of the Archbishop, '' that 
Hooper could not be brought to any conformity, but rather 
persevered in his obstinacy, coveted to prescribe orders 
and necessary laws to his head," the universal panacea was 
administered by committing him to the Fleet, We wish 
it could be recorded, that conscience in this instance 

* Nothing but this hypocritical subscription was required, as the condi- 
tion of fuU restoration to his bishopric, and a place in the King's council. 



cranmer's bible : the Anglican church. 343 

proved as unyielding as self-will in the other. But after 
a time spent in prison, Hooper learned to appreciate the 
arguments of his brethren, and exchanged his uncomfort- 
able lodgings in the Fleet, for the bishopric and its vest- 
ments. 

But there were other cases which more nearly touch 
our sympathies, because infringing, under the sacred name 
of the Bible, on the religious liberties of the common 
people. We are told, that ^[ now that the liberty of the 
Gospel began to be allowed, (!) divers false and unsound 
opinions began to be vented with it." The Archbishop 
felt it incumbent on him to put a stop to these disorders, 
by conventing several ^'heretics" before him, and com- 
pelling them to take a public oath of recantation, with 
such farther penance as seemed to him advisable. One 
man, for maintaining that the regenerate could not sin, 
and other notions of like character, was required — besides 
signing an abjuration, and a promise " never to hold, teach, 
or believe the said errors or damned opinions above re- 
hearsed — to procure two sureties in five hundred pounds 
(equal at least to twenty thousand dollars) for his attend- 
ance the Sunday following at Paul's Cross, and there to 
stand penitently before the preacher, all the time of ser- 
mon, with a faggot on his shoulder." Michael Thombe, a 
butcher, was convented, for holding " that Christ took not 
the flesh of the Virgin, and that the baptism of infants is 
not profitable, because it goeth before faith ; but, ^' by 
submission and penance, he escaped !" 

There was another class of off*enders, as described by 
Strype — " some that took the liberty of meeting together, 
in certain places, and there to propound odd questions, 
and vent dangerous doctrines and opinions." As a speci- 



344 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

men of these disorderly proceedings, it is mentioned, that 
*' a number of persons, a sort of Anabaptists, about sixty, 
met in a house on a Sunday, in the parish of Booking, in 
Essex ; where arose among them a great dispute, ' Whether 
it were necessary to stand or kneel, bare-head or covered, 
at prayers ?' and they concluded the ceremony not to be 
material ; but that the heart before God was required, and 
nothing else. Such other like warm disputes there were 
about Scripture." Similar assemblies were likewise held 
in Kent. ^^ These," says Strype, " were looked on as dan- 
gerous to church and state." Nine of these from Booking, 
*' being cowherds, clothiers, and such like mean people," 
and . others from Kent, having been arrested and brought 
before the council, confessed the cause of their assembly to 
be, " for to talk of the Scriptures." They also admitted 
that they had refused the communion for two years. Their 
grounds for so doing being judged erroneous and supersti- 
tious, " five of them were committed to prison, and seven 
bound in recognizance to the King in forty pounds each 
man." 

But ^' the mild Archbishop," as he is called joar excel- 
IcncCy could not always satisfy his conscience with fines 
and prisons. An ignorant young woman, named Joan Bo- 
cher, who held the heresy that Christ, being sinless, could 
not have partaken of the flesh of the Virgin, who was con- 
ceived in sin, withstood all the efi'orts put forth for her 
conversion. The Archbishop, as well as Ridley and Lat- 
imer, labored long and earnestly for this object ; but at 
length gave over the attempt, and she was condemned to 
the flames. When the sentence was brought by Cranmer 
to the young King for signature, he long refused; and 
when at last he yielded, weeping, to the authority and 



CRANMER S BIBLE : THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. oAb 

arguments of his venerated instructor in religion, it was 
with the solemn declaration, " If there is wrong in this 
matter, it rests wholly on your hands !'' In the year 
1551, a Dutchman suffered the same death, by Cranmer's 
authority, for denying the divinity of Christ. 

Such were the measures to which good men were driven 
for the support of that State church, which has been glori- 
fied as the embodiment of the English Reformation. But 
these measures never grew out of that inward divine life 
which the Spirit of God, through God's own word, had 
awakened among the people of England. They were, in- 
deed, the legitimate fruits of the ecclesiastical system, which 
royal despotism had forced upon that noble work; or, in 
Milton's splendid language, " the verminous and polluted 
rags, dropt over-worn from the toiling shoulders of Time, 
deformedly quilted and interlaced with the entire, the 
spotless, and undecaying robe of truth." The persecuting 
spirit which so sadly defaces the history of English Protest- 
antism, is due not to Christianity, nor even, primarily, to the 
men who have been the instruments of oppression. It 
belonged to the system which constituted the civil ruler 
the controller, ex officio^ of man's relations to God. When 
non-conformity to a certain church is made an offence 
against the constitution of the State, it must, of necessity, 
be punished by the civil sword. Nor can any change of 
organization, nor of men, nor of times, effect any real 
alteration in the working of this system. Catholic Spain, 
Protestant England, Calvinistic Geneva, Puritan New 
England, Lutheran Germany, all bear witness to this 
assertion. The stake and the gibbet may, indeed, be ban- 
ished by the advancing light of Christian civilization ; but 

other forms of oppression, suited to the mildness and prot 

15* 



346 THE ESGLlSll BiBLK. 

prieties of the age, will continue to attest, that a State 
religion, in its very nature, is a denial of the supremacy 
of conscience, and as such, is and must be, an Inquisition 
and a despotism. 

Cranmer, in his efforts to consolidate the Anglican 
Church, was actuated, no doubt, by pious and patriotic 
motives. To concentrate ecclesiastical power in the hands 
of the king of England, was his expedient to secure it 
from reverting to the Pope of Rome ; as to make the 
doctrines of Protestantism the State religion of England, 
was forever to exclude the teachers of Popery, who were 
also the sworn enemies of the Bible for the people. To 
make sure of this end, and that no loophole of access might 
be left to the abettors of Romanism, required that the lines 
of orthodoxy should be sharply defined; and especially, 
that no inward disagreement should cause a weak and 
broken front to be presented to the enemy. Hence Con^ 
formity became his one idea ; carried even to the doting and 
childish exaggeration of requiring unity in outward forms 
and ceremonies, and in the cut and color of garments, no lesa 
than in the belief of the essential truths of Christianity. 

But whatever may be its faults, the church which recog- 
nizes the people's right to the unrestricted use of the Bible 
in their mother tongue, differs from one which denies this, 
as light from darkness. If it promulgates error, it also 
administers the antidote; if it claims a tyran'ny over con- 
science, it deprives no man of the charter, wherein he may 
read his inalienable title to judge for himself how he shall 
worship God. Accordingly, we find that under the inde- 
fatigable endeavors of Archbishop Cranmer and his suc- 
cessors to enforce '^uniformity and quietness in religion,'' 
tlie spirit of independent thought increased among the 



cranmek's bible : the angelican church. 347 

people, and Puritanism grew rife iu the very bosom of the 
church. 

While, therefore, we must regret the mistaken policy 
of Cranmer, which did so much to entail on England the 
burden under which she has groaned three hundred years, 
which has cost so much of her best blood, and exiled or 
disfranchised so many of her most loyal children ; we must* 
still remember him with gratitude as one of the earliest 
advocates of vernacular translation, and especially as 
that one who first obtained from the civil power the ad- 
mission of the Bible into the public service of religion, 
and liberty for all, without respect to class or condition, 
to read it for themselves. This was the vital point. This 
granted, and the enjoyment of that religious liberty and 
equality which the Bible teaches, was but a question of 
time and patience. 

The reign of Edward VI., during which Cranmer wield- 
ed almost unbounded ecclesiastical power, is a period illus- 
trious in the annals of the Bible. With all the Primate's 
fondness for legislating in matters of religion, he wisely 
left the word of God to take care of itself, except so far as 
to give his warmest encouragement to all efforts for multi- 
plying and diffusing it. The fifty editions of Bibles and 
New Testaments which appeared during this brief reign, 
in answer to the spontaneous popular demand, are a greater 
glory to Cranmer than if they had all been issued in obe- 
dience to his authority. 

In another respect also, we see his true liberality in re- 
ference to the Scriptures. Four versions, and these in 
editions varying more or less among themselves, were be- 
'fore the public, and one of these was his own. Yet there 
is no trace, that his vast influence as Primate was used to 



348 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

gain for this any preference in the public favor. During 
these six and a half years there were published, as nearly 
as can be ascertained, of Coverdale's Bible, two of the 
whole Bible and two of the New Testament ; of Taver- 
ner's, two ; of Cranmer's, seven of the whole Bible, and 
eight of the New Testament ; of Tyndale's, five of the 
whole Bible (in eight distinct issues, commonly reckoned 
as separate editions), and of the New Testament twenty- 
four. Besides these, were two or three editions of the latter 
published with Erasmus' Latin New Testament in parallel 
columns. It is interesting to see from this comparison, 
that Tyndale's New Testament was still the favorite of 
the common mind ; while the change in the character of 
the ruling influences is marked by the fact, that the long- 
proscribed name of the translator appeared in full on the 
title page of at least fifteen editions. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE REIGN OF TERROR. 

Again the scene was changed. A stern adherent of the 
Church of Rome now sat on the throne of England, in place 
of the gentle and pious Edward. 

It is not strange that the long series of disappointments, 
mortifications, and sorrows, which had consumed the youth 
and early womanhood of Mary, should havje tinged her 
spirit with bitterness and gloom. A sadder fate few have 
experienced. Commencing life with the most brilliant 
prospects, accustomed almost in infancy to the pomp and 
adulation of an expectant queen, sought in marriage by 
the greatest princes of Europe ; before the age of twenty- 
five she saw the marriage of which she was born declared in- 
cestuous, her illustrious mother iguominiously supplanted, 
herself disowned, and studiously degraded by her own 
father. In poverty and neglect, often in jeopardy of her 
life from her father's jealousy of one he had so deeply in- 
jured, she wore away ten weary years. With the sense of 
personal wrong, was mingled indignation and horror at the 
sacrilegious repudiation of the ancient faith, so intimately 
connected with it. It required great strength and elasticity 
of nature, such as Elizabeth possessed, or great Chris- 



350 THE ENGLISH BIBLE, 

tian magnanimity, to come unharmed out of such a trial. 
Mary had neither. Narrow in mind, melancholic in tem- 
per, the devotee of a faith which nurtures the darker pas- 
sions, the fearful tempest of life had but withered and 
chilled her ; and she came to the throne yet young, only 
thirty-six, a blighted woman, a bigoted and morose zealot. 
The memory of the humiliations and terrors to which she 
had been subjected, but fed the fierce fiame of religious 
fanaticism, and her power as Queen was valued only as 
the instrument to avenge herself and her religion. 

Mary entered London on the 3d of August, 1553. Her 
first act was to release and reinstate '^ her bishops," as she 
emphatically styled Grardiner, Bonner, and Tunstal, who 
emerged from their six years' incarceration, unsubdued in 
spirit, and thirsting for revenge. The former, who pos- 
sessed in an eminent degree the pride, the talent, and the 
craft which characterize the higher class of the Romish 
priesthood, was made Lord Chancellor; Bonner, a fero- 
cious bully, not above playing the hypocrite when occasion 
ofi'ered, and insatiable in his thirst for blood, became one 
of Mary's most influential counsellors, and her chief in- 
quisitor. But few days were suffered to elapse after Ed- 
ward's funeral, when the Queen re-inaugurated the reign 
of Obscurantism^ that twin sister of Popery, by an " Inhi- 
bition " against reading or teaching any Scriptures in the 
cburches, and printing any books. By the 15th of Sep- 
tember, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Hooper, Bradford, and 
■other distinguished Reformers, were shut up in the Tower, 
while John Rogers was made prisoner in his own house, 
and forbidden to speak to any person out of his own family. 
In the Parliament which met in October, Cranmer was at- 
tainted of high treason ; and a bill waQ passed re-affirming 



THE REIGN OF TERROR. 351 

Henry's marriage with Katherine, the preamble to which 
recogDized the late Archbishop as the sole instigator of 
the divorce. Had this been true, it would be hard to 
blame Mary for siDgling him out as a special object of 
resentment. But both Bonner and Gardiner had been 
zealous agents in the divorce, long before Cranmer became 
an actor in it and the latter was a member with Cranmer 
of the commission which pronounced the marriage with 
Katherine unlawful. Both of them had also, with all 
show of cordiality, acknowledged the King's supremacy. 
Nay, Mary herself had conceded both points, for the sake 
of regaining position and influence at court. Her servile 
letter to her father on the death of Anne Boleyn, and the 
yet more servile articles which she consented to subscribe, 
abjuring her religion and with her own hand endorsing the 
foul stigma which had been cast upon her birth,* should 
have forever prevented her from making the like acts 
grounds of accusation against others. But all this shows 
that her conduct was governed not so much by personal or 
political, as by religious motives. G-ardiner was a true Pa- 
pist, and this covered all his offences ; Cranmer was a 
zealous Protestant, and this was a crime which cancelled 
all obligations. For it was Cranmer's intercession which 
had saved her from the Tower, and from a bloody death at 
her father's hands ; and he had incurred the hatred of the 
powerful Northumberland by his earnest opposition, only 
relinquished upon Edward's dying entreaties, to the exclu- 
sion of Mary from the succession. 

Nor did any execution take place on the charge of trea- 
son. A year and a half were the accused reserved in prison^ 
till Cardinal Pole had effected a formal reconciliation be- 

* Biimot, Vol. T, p 154. 



352 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

tween the apostate kingdom and Holy Mother Church, by 
which the Pope resumed all his ancient dominion over 
England, and the doctrines of Rome became once more the 
established faith. A stillness, presaging the bursting of 
the storm, held the nation for a time in suspense and 
fear. 

Meanwhile, all foreigners attached to the reformed 
principles, great numbers of whom had, during the reign 
of Edward, fled from persecution in their own countries 
into England, were warned to depart without delay. In 
their train, disguised as servants, and by other opportuni- 
ties, a large body of English Protestants contrived to 
elude the vigilance of government, and escaped to the 
continent. Not less than eight hundred or a thousand 
learned men, besides great numbers in other conditions, 
are estimated to have become exiles during this short 
reign. 

At length, on the 21st of November, 1554, Cardinal 
Pole arrived in England as Papal Legate, and was received 
with all the pomp and reverence due to the ambassador 
plenipotentiary of his Holiness. On the 30th of the same 
month, he performed the ceremony of reconciling Parlia- 
ment, as the highest civil assembly of the realm ; on the 
6th of December the same was done in the Convocation, the 
highest assembly of the clergy. This was followed by 
commissions, issued by the Cardinal to Winchester and 
other bishops, for trying heretics. It was then that the 
pent up flames of persecution burst forth with unexampled 
fury. The alacrity of the commissioned prelates to dis- 
charge their bloody office, shows with what impatience they 
had waited for the appointed hour. First, the most emi- 
nent of the Reformers, those who were regarded as leaders 



THE REIGN OF TERROR. 353 

of the host, were condemned and executed ; then attention 
was turned to humbler victims. The whole country was 
placed under the most odious system of espionage. Jus- 
tices of the Peace in the several counties were formed into 
secret vigilance committees, who were directed to lay out 
their shires into districts, and to employ spies in every 
parish; and they were to meet monthly to receive 
the information thus gathered, to examine such as were 
accused, and make report to head-quarters. By these 
thorough measures it was intended utterly to root out and 
extirpate heresy from the land. The Queen, especially 
after her marriage with that cold hearted bigot Phillip II, 
urged on these proceedings against her innocent subjects 
with' unrelenting fury. Even the hope of becoming a 
mother but added fierceness to her cruelty ; and she de- 
clared that unless her mind were quieted by the death of 
every heretic thjen in the prisons, " even to the last one^'^ 
she could not hope to pass the approaching crisis with 
safety.* Bonner himself was then too slow for her impa- 
tience. * 

It was a terrific period ; and, as in all similar trials, 
" the love of many waxed cold," and multitudes sought to 
make the impossible compromise between outward assent to 
what they disbelieved, and inward allegiance to the truth. 
But there were also many who chose death rather than 
deny Christ ; and their example did far more to under- 
mine Popery in the hearts of the people, than Cranmer's 
church had ever accomplished with its carefully elaborated 
Articles, and its gentle persuasives of fines and the Fleet. 
The faith of these steadfast martyrs was an argument 
which came not in word alone, but in power. It told of 
* Strype's Cranmer, Vol. 1, p. 528. 



354 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

an inward life which could overmaster fear and pain, which, 
in the midst of bodily torture, could impart a divine joy 
such as earthly prosperity could never give, and even in 
the dying agooy could inspire a prayer of forgiveness and 
love for the persecutor. 

From February 1555, to November 1558, a period of 
less than four years, there perished in prison, by torture, 
and at the stake, nearly four hundred persons, a large 
number of whom were in the flower of youth. Of these 
two hundred and eighty-eight perished at the stake, many 
of them under circumstances of peculiar cruelty. As if 
the spectacle of a single human being, shrivelling in the 
flames could not satisfy the cannibal fury of their persecu- 
tors, it became the custom to burn them in companies of 
from three to ten or more. At Colchester five men and 
five women were burned in one day, six in the morning and 
four in the afternoon. At Lewis, in Kent, six men and 
four women perished together. At Bow, near London, was 
witnessed, June 27th, 1556, the horrible spectacle of 
thirteen human beings, eleven men and two women, con- 
sumed in one fire. They suff'ered, not even charged with 
any ofi'ence against morality or the civil law ; but simply 
because they could not conform their consciences to the 
doctrines and observances of the Queen's religion. 

Such a time was needed, also, to show what the word 
of God had already done for England. After the first 
paralyzing shock of terror, the work which had been pro- 
gressing for thirty years, manifested itself with increasing 
power ; till at length the demonstrations of popular feel- 
ing, though free from every trace of violence or disorder, 
alarmed the government into comparative moderation. 
On the occasion last mentioned, twenty thousand persons 



THE REIGN OF TERROR. ObU 

were estimated to have been present, '* whose ends generally 
in coming there, and to such like executions," says Strype, 
*' were to strengthen themselves in the profession of the 
Gospel, and to exhort and comfort those who were to die." 
A single bystander having uttered, in the fullness of his 
heart, a brief ejaculation in behalf of the sufferers, a res- 
ponsive Amen burst from the assembled multitude with the 
sound of thunder.* But the infatuated Queen needed 
many such lessons before she learned to respect the awful 
voice of popular conviction. 

The persecutions of the year 1558 again brought out to 
the light those secret societies of believers, or Congrega- 
tions, as they called themselves, which have been already 
mentioned in the account of Frith, and elsewhere in this 
history, as the successors of the Lollards. Several of 
these now existed in London ; and from the number of lo- 
calities specified where they were accustomed to assemble, 
It appears that they had increased rather than diminished. 
Whether they had been known during the administration 
of Cranmer is uncertain ; but as they seem to have pre- 
served their separate organization, differing in important 
respects from the State Church, it is most probable that 
they had continued to assemble, during that period, with 
their wonted silence and secrecy. So far as we can judge, 
they were simply companies, (or, as we should now call 
them, churches) of believers, who met statedly for the wor- 
ship of Grod and for the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and 
had no officers but a Pastor and Deacons chosen by them- 
selves. The congregation which assembled in Bow Lane, 
is known to have existed without interruption twenty-five 
years, and was probably the parent of all the rest. They 
* Anderson, Vol. II, p. 264. 



356 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

had not intermitted their meetings during Mary's bloody 
reign, and had enjoyed through this period the labors of a 
succession of godly and able pastors. These had been 
compelled, one after another, to take refuge in flight ; but 
the members, as a body, had thus far escaped detection. 

A tone of piety, beautifully primitive and Scriptural, 
characterized these quiet, humble companies of Christians. 
They seem never to have been disturbed by those hair- 
splitting disputes over free-will and predestination, in which 
the metaphysical tendencies of some of the leading reform- 
ers had embroiled Protestantism ; and which, in the ear- 
lier days of the Marian persecution, had made even the 
prisons of the faithful reecho with the brawls of fiery con- 
troversy, and compelled the jailers to secure a decent 
peace, by separating brother from brother.* These disci- 
ples seem, preeminently, to have '^ kept the unity of the 
ppirit in the bond of peace." Holding fast those grand 
truths of revelation which pertain to the soul's salvation, 
it was their simple aim to incorporate them as living ener- 
gies in their hearts, and to manifest that inward power by 
lives of holiness and love. Such had been their character 
from their first beginnings in the days of Wickliffe. 

Bonner's suspicious eye had been for some time directed to 
the gatherings of these inoffensive people ; and his spies, 
under the guise of brethren, had been busily engaged in 
seeking information to be used against them. At length, 
one Sabbath morning — December 12th, 1558 — as they 
were about assembling for divine worship at Islington, 
their pastor, Mr. John Rough, and one of their deacons, 
Cuthbert Symson, a rich and worthy citizen of London, 
were there apprehended by the Captain of the Queen's 

* Strype's Cranmer, Book iii., ch. xiv. 



THE REIGN OF TERROR. 357 

Guard, and taken immediately before the Privy Council. 
Three days after, they were handed over "to the tender 
mercies of Bonner. During his trial before this brutal 
prelate, Mr. Rough alluded to a visit which he had once 
made to Rome, and the abominations he had there wit- 
nessed. This so infuriated Bonner, that he flew upon him 
like a wild beast, and actually tore out a part of his beard 
by the roots ! Two days before he suffered, he addressed 
the bereaved flock of which he had been so faithful a shep- 
herd, in a letter which breathed the spirit of the apostolic 
age. Like those of Tyndale and Frith, this beautiful 
epistle tells us, in every sentence, that the Bible was the 
fountain from which his life drew its springs. 

Mr. Symson was reserved three months longer in prison, 
the object being to force from him the names of his fellow- 
disciples, of which he had the list. Three times in one 
day was he subjected to torture ; but no agonies could 
tempt him to betray his brethren. Bonner himself con- 
fessed before the Consistory that he was baffled, and that 
there was something in this man's spirit which he could 
not understand. ^' Ye see this man," said he, '^ what a 
personable man he is. And furthermore, concerning his 
patience, I say unto you that if he were not a heretic, he 
is a man of the greatest patience that ever yet came before 
me ; for I tell you he hath been thrice racked in one day 
in the Tower. Also in my house he hath felt some sor- 
row ; and yet I never saw his patience broken." On the 
28th of March, this heroic taan was burnt at Smithfield, 
in company with two of his brethren. 

The place of their pastor was immediately supplied by 
the not less holy and intrepid Thomas Bentham. There 
was need of such a leader ; for the persecution now grew 



358 THE ENGLISH BIBLE; 

hot. Less than a month after the death of Cuthbert Sjm- 
son, about forty of their number, men and women, had as- 
sembled for worship near Islington. With their Bibles 
in their hands, they were ^^ occupied in the meditation of 
God's holy word," when they were surprised by a constable 
anxi his posse, who succeeded in arresting twenty-two of 
them. They were immediately imprisoned at Newgate, 
and there lay seven weeks without being once called up 
for examination. Two died in prison ; of the remaining 
twenty, thirteen were condemned on the 24th of June — a 
month memorable in the history of English martyrdom — 
to perish at the stake. The rest barely escaped with life. 
Seven of the condemned were to be burned at Smithfield. 
Fearful of the demonstrations which had been witnessed 
on former occasions of this character, Philip and Mary 
took the precaution of issuing a proclamation, to be read 
first at Newgate and afterwards at the stake, charging and 
commanding, that *' no man should either pray for, or 
speak to the condemned, or once say, ^ God help them !' " 
But it needed something more than royal proclamations to 
repress the mighty emotion now swelling in the great pop- 
ular heart. At the appointed hour, a vast multitude stood 
awaiting the arrival of the martyrs at Smithfield. Sway- 
ing forward at their approach, with a quiet but irresistible 
movement, they surrounded the prisoners, while the bill- 
men and officers were borne off like chaff on the wave, so 
that they could not even come near their charge. Then 
was disclosed the cause of this strange proceeding. In the 
bosom of that dense crowd were hid tlie '' congregation" 
and its pastor, who were now seen exchanging with their 
brethren farewell embraces, and words of encouragement 
and affection. Then they fell off quietly, and allowed the 



THE REIGN OF TERROR. 359 

officers to resume their places. The royal proclamation, 
enjoining silence, was now read. But on seeing the fire 
kindled, Mr. Bentham, turning to the multitude, exclaim- 
ed : '' We know that they are the people of God, and there- 
fore we cannot choose but wish well to them, and say, God 
strengthen them !" Then in a still louder voice, he added, 
'' Ahnighty God^ for Christ'' s sake^ strengthen them .^" 
Again that deep " amen ! amen !" rose on the air like the 
sound of many waters, and gave solemn pledge, in the face 
of earth and heaven, that the heart and conscience of Eng- 
land must and would be free. 

But it is time we turn to the direct history of the Eng- 
lish Bible during this bloody reign. 

It is not a little singular, that during these five and a 
half years, there seems to have been no direct legislation 
against the use of the Scriptures, beyond the proclamation 
issued by Mary on her accession. That the Queen would 
gladly have followed, in this respect, in her father's early 
steps, no one can doubt. That she refrained, is a telling 
symptom of the state of public opinion. But there were 
indirect methods of securing the same object ; and there 
is sufficient evidence that Bibles were seized and burned, 
and their readers severely punished. In 1555, a second 
proclamation forbade the importation and use of all or 
any of the works of certain authors — thirty-five in number 
— whose names are therein specified. Among the twelve 
English authors on the list, are Tyndale, Coverdale, and 
Cranmer ; and though their translations of the Bible are 
not mentioned by name, we may be sure that they were 
not only included under the action of this decree, but were 
the special occasion of it. That it signally failed of 
the desired end, we learn from the tenor of the third 



360 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

proclamation in 1558, which required all "wicked and 
seditious books," to be delivered up on pain of immediate 
deathy by martial law ! The history now to follow, fur- 
nishes the key to this last measure, which bears upon its 
face the evidence of reckless desperation. Not only were 
the previously existing versions still read in secret in every 
part of England, but a new one — in some respects more 
formidable than either of its predecessors — was added to 
the number, several months before the death of the unhappy- 
Queen. It is of this version that a brief account will now 
be given. 



CHAPTER XVIL 



THE GENEVAN BIBLE. 

A CONSIDERABLE bodj of the English exiles had estab- 
lished themselves at Geneva in Switzerland, then, as ever 
since, a city eminent for theological learning. The Eng- 
lish church at Geneva is said to have numbered several 
hundred members, among whom were many distinguished 
scholars and preachers. Shut up together in this city of 
letters, and with few active duties to occupy their time, 
it is not strange to ^nd them busy in devising plans for 
benefitting their beloved native land. It was, indeed, a 
time of general intellectual activity among the learned 
fugitives scattered through various parts of Protestant 
Europe ; and many excellent works, the fruit of their con- 
strained leisure, were sent over to England to supply in 
some measure, by the silent labors of the pen, the voice of 
the living teacher. 

In Geneva, this activity very naturally directed itself 
towards an improved translation of the Scriptures. Such 
an attempt was fully in accordance with the spirit of the 
age, which had already given birth to independent ver- 
sions and repeated revisions of the English Scriptures; 
«iid now demanded the perfecting of this great work. In 

16 



o62 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

this respect, the undertaking presents a wide contrast to 
that of Tyndale, and exhibits in a striking light the 
changes effected in little more than a quarter of a cen- 
tury through the labors of that great man. What Ander- 
son well remarks of the version of Coverdale, may with 
still more propriety be applied to this, and to all subse- 
quent attempts in the same field : ^' Their translations 
were the efect of the times ; the times themselves were the 
effect of TyndaWsy This general tendency could not 
fail to receive a powerful impulse in Geneva, where, under 
the leadership of Calvin and Beza, sacred learning was 
cultivated with an ardor and success, far in advance of 
what was witnessed in any other portion of Christendom. 
It is not unlikely, from the circumstances, that the first 
suggestion of the new translation came from Calvin him- 
self. Among these is the fact that his brother-in-law, 
William Whittingham, as seems to be now conceded, was 
the translator of the New Testament. But whatever its 
source, the proposition awoke an instant enthusiasm among 
the whole body of exiles; and the lay members of the 
church encouraged the projectors not only with their sym- 
pathy, but with offers of all the pecuniary assistance needed 
to carry it through successfully. Among the most for- 
ward in this good work was John Bodleigh, father of 
the founder of the celebrated Bodleian Library, a man of 
wealth and noble spirit, who, on the completion of the ver- 
sion, took upon himself the chief cost of its publication.* 

The New Testament was first translated, and was pub- 
lished in 1557. The ability with which it was executed 
fully justified the undertaking. Every page exhibited 

* AndersoD, vol. I., p. 322. 



THE GENEVAN BIBLE. 363 

evidences of the advance of Christian scholarship since the 
appearance of the previous versions. In the Address to 
the Reader, the translator refers to the peculiar advan- 
tages afforded by his residence and relations in Geneva ; 
^' being,'- he says, ^' moved with zeal, counselled by the 
godly, and drawn by occasion, both of the place where God 
hath appointed us to dwell, and also of the store of heaven- 
ly learning and judgment which so aboundeth in this city 
of Geneva, that Ju-tIW it may be called the patron and 
mirror of true religion and godliness." The utmost 
thoroughness was aimed at in the work. Not only was 
the translation made directly from the Greek, aided by 
comparison with versions in other languages, but the Greek 
text itself (as published by Erasmus) was revised by 
manuscripts which had been collected by the scholars of 
Geneva. When it was completed, Calvin expressed his 
interest in the work by prefixing to it an introduction, 
which he calls : ' Th^ Epistle declaring that Christ is the 
end of the Law.' It sketches briefly and beautifully the 
progressive steps by which the need of a Mediator and Ke- 
deemer was made known, and the minds of men taught to 
look forward to him ; till at length, in the fulness of time 
he appeared, and by his miracles, his teachings, his death 
and ascension, proved himself to be the long expected hope 
of the world, — to which also agreed the witness of inspired 
men, of angels, and of God himself. The divinely authen- 
ticated history of these transactions is contained in the 
books of the New Testament, which embodies also the 
teachings of inspired apostles as to the application to be 
made of them for securing our salvation. 

'' All these things are published, declared, written, and sealed to us in 
this Testament, by the which Jesus Christ makes us his heirs in the king- 



364 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

dom of God his Father, and declareth unto us his will, as he that maketb 
his testament to his heirs to be put in execution. Now we are all called to 
this inheritance, without putting any manner of difference either between 
man or woman, small or great, servant or lord, master or scholar, clergy 
or laity, Hebrew, Greek, French, or Latin, none of them is refused, if that 
by assured confidence he embraceth that which is sent unto him ; briefly, 
whosoever shall acknowledge Jesus Christ such as he is ordained of the 
Father. Therefore," he continues, " shall we that bear the name of Chris- 
tians suffer this Testament to be taken from us, or else to be hid or cor- 
rupted, which so justly is ours, and without the which we can pretend to no 
title to the kingdom of God, without the which we know not the excellent 
graces and promises which Jesus Christ hath declared towards us, neither 
the glory and blessedness which he hath prepared for us 7" ....'* 
Christians, understand now and learn this point ; for doubtless the ignorant 
shall perish in his ignorance, and the blind following another blind shall 
fall with him into the ditch. There is but one way to life and salvation, 
that is, faith in the assurance of God's promises, which we cannot have 
without the Gospel." " What thing might there be then that could una- 
quaint us and drive us back from this Gospel? Shall injuries, evil sayings, 
rebukes, loss of worldly honors ? . . . . Shall banishment, proclamations 
of attaint, loss of lands and goods ? . . . . Shall afflictions, prisons, rack- 
ings, torments, make us shrink from this Gospel 7 We learn by Jesus 
Christ that this is the right path to come to glory. Finally, shall death ? 
Nay, death cannot take away that life which we wish and wait for." 

The tone of the whole epistle is gentle and tender, as if 
the heart of the writer were melted with sympathy for hig 
persecuted brethren ; and his exposition of the offices of 
Christ, as the all andin all to the redeemed, of his infinite 
worth and the fulness of his love, breathe a richness and 
fervor of piety, which conflicts somewhat with the com- 
mon notion entertained of the stern Reformer. 

The New Testament was no sooner completed, than the 
translator, now aided by learned associates, of whom Gil- 
by and Sampson, two of his distinguished fellow-exiles, are 
supposed to have been the chief, turned his attention to the 
Hebrew Scriptures. Elizabeth's accession, and the conse- 



THE GENEVAN BIBLE. 365 

quent happy change of affairs in the autumn of 1558, in- 
vited them back to England, whither the great body of 
English exiles now returned with joyful haste. But so 
deeply were they impressed with the importance of finish- 
ing the great task they had undertaken, that for two years 
longer they denied themselves the sight of their native land, 
and labored, as they tell us, '' day and night," till it was 
completed. In 1560 the first edition of the complete Ge- 
nevan version appeared in England. 

As Greek philology was far in advance of Hebrew when 
the former versions were made, and much had been accom- 
plished in the latter since their time, the Genevan Old 
Testament exhibited a yet more decided improvement than 
the New. In both divisions, the style of the translation 
shows it to have been an entirely independent rendering 
of the original, neither studiously departing from the for- 
mer versions, nor trammeled by them, where the transla- 
tor's view of the sense differs from theirs, or where the 
same sense can be more clearly expressed in another form. 
As compared with Tyndale's, its manner sometimes appears 
dry and curt, and we miss in it, or fancy that we miss, the 
glow with which the heart of the old translator suffused his 
phraseology ; but the meaning is often brought out with 
far greater distinctness. The English is in every respect 
as intelligible as that of our common version, not seldom 
vaore so, and the two would still be read with great profit 
in connexion. It is, indeed, much to be regretted that so 
excellent a version should not be rescued from the dust 
of past ages, and made accessible to English readers as a 
help to the better understanding of their Family Bible. 

Its usefulness and its popularity were much increased 
by the brief, pithy notes added by the translators, con- 



366 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

taining such information in regard to Biblical geography 
and antiquitieSj and such doctrinal explanations, as were 
needed for the clear understanding of the text. Another 
feature, which indicates the liberal spirit of the translators, 
is the insertion in the margin of various readings, thus 
placing the unlearned reader, so far as possible, in the po- 
sition of the scholar, and allowing him to use his own 
judgment as to which of the readings suits best with the 
connexion. A less commendable novelty is the division 
of the text into verses^ a practice till then unknown in 
English Bibles, but ever since as pertinaciously adhered 
to, as if an integral part of the inspired word. No single 
thing, probably, has done more towards multiplying sects 
in the Christian body, and substituting a dry, dogmatic 
theology in place of the living sap of revealed truth, than 
this mischievous device, for which there is but one poor 
plea — the advantage of easy reference. 

To the whole Bible, thus completed, was prefixed an 
Epistle " to our beloved brethren in England, Scotland, 
and Ireland," in which they explain their reasons for send- 
ing forth a new version. 

" Now, forasmuch as this thing [progress in a holy life] is chiefly attained 
by the knowledge and practising of the word of God, (which is the light to 
our paths, the key of the kingdom of Heaven, our comfort in affliction, our 
shield and sword against Satan, the school of all wisdom, the glass wherein 
we behold God's fare, the testimony of his favor, and the only food and 
nourishment of our souls,) wo thought we coifld bestow our labors and study 
in nothing which couM bo more acceptable to God, and comfortable to his 
church, than in the translating of the Scriptures into our native tongue ; the 
which thing, albeit that others heretofore h;ive endeavored to achieve, yet, 
considering the infancy of those times and imperfect knowledge of the 
tongues, in respect of this ripe ago and clear light which God hath now re- 
vealed the translations required greatly to bo perused and reformed." 

The Genevan Bible at once found favor with the people, 



THE GENEVAN BIBLE. 367 

and established itself in a wonderfully brief period as the 
Family Bible of England. Unsustained and even dis- 
countenanced by the ruling ecclesiastical powers, it not 
only supplanted the earlier versions, but maintained its 
place against two powerful competitors of later date, as 
the favorite version of the people, for the greater part of a 
century. During this time, it passed (including the separ- 
ate issues of the New Testament) through a hundred 
and fifty editions. It even made its way to a considerable 
extent into churches, being preferred by many clergymen 
even after the publication of the Bishops' Bible. It still 
continued to be printed for private use long after the ap- 
pearance of King James' revision^ the last ascertained 
edition bearing date 1644. So pertinaciously, indeed, 
did the people cling to it, and so injurious was its 
influence to the interests of Episcopacy and of the '^ author- 
ized version," that in the reign of Charles I, Archbishop 
Laud made the vending, binding, or importation of it a 
high-commission crime.* Even so late as 1649, an attempt 
was made to commend King James' Bible to popular favor, 
thirty-eight years from its first publication, by printing 
with it the Genevan Notes ! But after that time, the old 
Family Bible gradually disappeared from the homes and 
hearths of England, and gave place to that which has been 
so long known and honored as the Common Version. 

The success of the Genevan version is to be explained 
chiefly from two causes : First, its intrinsic merits, as a 
faithful and clear transcript of the inspired word, accord- 
ing to the best scholarship of the age. Its character in 
this respect was so unquestionable, as to secure for it uri- 

*An(iersonVoLII, p. 390. 



368 THE EKGLISH BIBLE. 

versa! respect, and to draw even from those who least liked' 
its influence, a frank concession of its excellence.* Second^ 
its origin in the stronghold of Presbjterianism, its connec- 
tion with the name of Calvin, and with the doctrines, the 
severe simplicity in forms, and the comparative Christian 
equality prevailing in the Genevan church, commended it ta 
the warmest sympathy of that large and increasing body, the 
Puritan party in the church of England. To them, it be-^ 
came the symbol of all they wished to see in their native 
land ; of a church reform, which should sweep away every 
thing in Christian worship borrowed from the traditions 
of the church of Rome, and which should conform it, out- 
wardly as well as inwardly, to the model furnished in the- 
word of God. How much it thus did, directly and indi- 
rectly, both for the spread of real piety, and for the devel- 
opment of Puritanism, and of the spirit of religious and 
eivil liberty in England, it is impossible to estimate. 

What cause is it for regret, that its influence should not 
have been wholly on the side of truth and freedom ! But 
the Genevan associations, so intimately linked with its ex- 
istence, were not all beneficial. Genevan Presbyterianisni 
— far as it had advanced, in other respects, beyond Popery 
and Episcopacy — had not learned to respect the rights of 
conscience. While she secured Christian liberty, in larger 
measure, and to a greater number than did her Anglican 
sister, her hand was no less heavy on tho«e outside her con- 
secrated pale ; and the sword cf the magistrate was recog- 
nized as well by Calvin as by Cranmer, as the proper 
guardian of the purity and order of the church of Christ. 

This spirit had left its impress, in no questionable char- 
acters, on the Genevan Bible. The Old Testament had 

* Strype's Life of Archbishop Parker, p. 207^ 



THE GENEVAN BIBLE. 369 

been completed in the initial period of Elizabeth's reign, 
when her policy as yet seemed undecided, and the reform 
party indulged the confident expectation that the English 
Church, shattered to its foundations by Mary, would be 
reconstructed in accordance with their views. Under this 
exhilarating idea, the translators, in the dedication of their 
work to that " most vertuous and noble ladie," thus ex- 
horted her to exercise her powers as civil ruler, for the 
suppression of error and establishment of truth : 

" Now as he that goeth about to lay a foundation surely, first taketh 
away such impediments as might justly either hurt, let, or deform the work ; 
so is it necessary that your Grace's zeal appear herein, that neither the 
crafty persuasion of man, neither worldly policy or natural fear, dissuade 
you to root out, cut down, and destroy those weeds and impediments which 
do not only deface your building, but utterly endeavor — yea, and threaten 
the ruin thereof. For when the noble Josias enterprised the like kind of 
work, among other notable and many things, he destroyed not only with 
utter confusion the idols and their appurtenances, but also burnt (in sign of 
detestation) the idolatrous priests' bones upon their altars, and put to death 
the false prophets and sorcerers, to perform the words of the law of God : 
and therefore God gave him good success, and blessed him wonderfully, so 
long as he made God's word his line and rule to follow, and enterprised no- 
thing before he had enquired at the mouth of the Lord. 

" And if these zealous beginnings seem dangerous, and to breed disquiet- 
ness in your dominions, yet by the story of King Asa it is manifest that the 
quietness and peace of kingdoms standeth in the utter abolishing of idolatry, 
and in advancing of true religion ; for in his days Judah lived in rest and 
quietness for the space of five and thirty years, till at length he began to be 
cold in the zeal of the Lord, feared the power of man, imprisoned the Pro- 
phet of God, and oppressed the people ; then the Lord sent him wars, and 
at length took him away by death. 

" Moreover, the marvellous diligence and zeal of Jehoshaphat, Josiah, 
and Hezekiah, are, by the singular providence of God, left as an example 
to all godly rulers to reform their countries, and to establish the word of 
God with all speed, lest the wrath of God fall upon them for the neglecting 
thereof. For these excellent kings did not only embrace the word promptly 
and joyfully, but also procured earnestly, and commanded the same to be 

16* 



370 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

taught, preached, and maintained through all their countries and dominions 
— binding them and all their subjects, both great and small, with solemn 
protestations and covenants before God, to obey the word, and walk after 
the ways of the Lord. Yea, and in the days of King Asa, it was enacted 
that whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel, should be slain, 
whether he were small or great, man or woman." 

The shrewd Princess was quite ready to acknowledge 
the principle thus laid down, but not the application of it 
intended by its expositors. If conjecture is right in regard 
to the names of the translators, some of the very men who 
penned this dangerous counsel, and made Grod's charter of 
human ri<]jhts the medium for communicating: it to the 
royal mind, were soon made to drink deeply of the cup 
which they had mixed for others. Yet even the humilia- 
tions so steadfastly endured, and the blood so freely shed 
by Puritans in this and the succeeding reigns in behalf of 
relicjious libertv, could not eradicate from their veins this 
early taint. Not till they had breathed the free air of the 
western wilderness two hundred years, did they fully learn 
the lesson, that Christianity can live and flourish unpro- 
tected by the State. 

Thus the English Bible went forth once more in in- 
creased energy, still restricted in its action by human in- 
firmity, but bearing within itself the power gradually to 
overcome and subdue all that could hinder the perfect ful- 
fillment of its mission. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE BISHOPS' BIBLE. 

IxN 1561, the third year of Elizabeth's reign, John Bod- 
leigh, with whom we have already become acquainted 
iu the account of the Genevan Bible, obtained from the 
Queen's government a patent for the exclusive right to 
print that version during the seven years next ensuing. 
In 1566, having a thoroughly revised edition ready for the 
press, and wishing to print it in England, he applied to 
Cecil, the Queen's Secretary, for an extension of this 
license. Before giving him a reply, Cecil consulted with 
Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Grindal, Bishop of 
London. Their answer contains three striking points. 
First, a recognition from these dignitaries of the great 
merit of the Genevan Bible, on which account they recom- 
mended the extension of Bodleigh's privilege to twelve 
years longer ; secondly, the announcement of their design 
to set forth a special translation for use in churches ; third- 
ly, the condition proposed to be annexed to Bodleigh's 
patent, viz., a promise, "in writing under his hand, that 
no impression of the Genevan Bible should pass ivithoiit 
tJteir direction^ consent^ and advice^ 

To elucidate the bearings of this reply requires a brief 



372 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

view of the pollej now established in the Elizabcthaa 
church ; a policy which continued to govern it with ex- 
tended claims and increasing force, till in the hands of 
Charles I., the overstrung bow broke with its own tension, 
and State-Church and CLurch-State fell in common ruin. 

At the accession of Elizabeth, there were tokens that 
the spirit of Christian liberality and union had very consid- 
erably increased among English Protestants. Their com- 
mon sufferings during the preceding bloody reign, and the 
fraternal sympathy and hospitality which they had received 
from the Reformed churches abroad, had at once exalted 
in their regard the essential grounds of faith in which 
they agreed, and lowered their estimate of the external 
forms in which they differed. In anticipation of the re- 
organization of the English Church, a general disposition 
was manifested to lay less stress on an exact outward uni- 
formity, and to leave the details of habits and ceremonies 
to individual conscience and discretion. The letters of 
the returned exiles to their Presbyterian brethren on the 
continent, not only breathe this spirit of conciliation, but 
show a decided leaning towarda the simpler and more dem- 
ocratic form of church government which prevailed in the 
Swiss churches, as being more closely conformed to the 
Xew Testament model, and better adapted to the edifica- 
tion of the people.* 

But in this they had reckoned without their host. Eli- 
zabeth had no intention of being a whit less a monarch 
than her father. She valued the Reformation, not so 
much for the truth it propagated, as for the foundation it 
offered for her own supremacy. She did not wish the 

* Burnet, vol. II. 



THE bishops' bible. 373 

Pope of Eome to rule in her dominions, because slie wished 
to be her.'^elf Pope, sole ruler over the actions and the 
consciences of her subjects. In the preceding reign she 
had conformed to the dominant faith, probably without 
much violence to her principles ; and her tastes were at 
least fully in harmony with its aristocratical constitution 
and its pompous rituaL But under no circumstances could 
she have become the devotee of any religion. Her clear 
masculine intellect, cold heart, and iron will, moved but at 
the bidding of one passion, and that the least religious of 
all passions, the love of power. Pteligion was to her sim- 
ply the right hand of that power. As such, it was to be 
cherished; but, as such also, to be held in strict subjec- 
tion, and to be employed in whatever service would pro- 
mote her grand design. She was quick to see that only a 
despotism in the Church could form a sure basis for des- 
potism in the State. Men accustomed in the management 
of their religious affairs to freedom of opinion and action, 
would soon begin to enquire whether they were not com- 
petent to exercise the same freedom, in regard to all things 
which concerned their interest and happiness. Popular 
elections in the church were dangerous precedents to be 
admitted into an absolute monarchy, such as she sought 
to establish; while the habit of unquestioning subjection 
to authority in matters of conscience, was the surest gua- 
rantee of docility to the civil power. Under a govern- 
tnent which united in one person the highest ecclesiastical 
and the highest civil authority, this result was inevitable. 
So, accordingly, she willed it to be. 

The state of the nation at her accession gave free scope 
to her ambitious plans. Ignorant of their own rights and 
their own strength, never yet having felt the invigorating 



o74 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

thrill of conscious freedom, her subjects had no other idea 
of security, than that of clinging like timid children, to 
the skirts of royalty. Majesty was then at its highest 
premium in England. Its frowns were like the artillery 
of heaven, terrible yet glorious to behold ; its smile melted 
the blessed recipient, as the sun melts wax, into whatever 
shape it might please the imperial will to cast him. Pro- 
testant Elizabeth, with her large, self-reliant, dauntless 
nature, seemed to her poor distracted people like a strong 
tower, into which they might run and be safe ; and every 
prerogative which could be taken from other hands and 
placed in hers, was supposed to be so much gained to- 
wards their well-being. Her first Parliament invested 
her with powers which, though nominally restricted by 
the Constitution, rendered her in fact absolute by law. 

Two principal enactments, which fixed as in an irou 
mould the character of her long reign, distinguished this 
session. The first recognized the royal supremacy in all 
causes, ecclesiastical and civil ; the second established uni- 
formity in religion as the law of the land. A clause in 
the -first of these Acts empowered the Queen and her suc- 
cessors, to delegate to such of her subjects as they shall 
think meet, as often and for as long time as they please, 
*' all manner of jurisdiction, privileges, and preeminences 
touching any spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction within 
the realms of England and Ireland, to visit, reform, re- 
dress, order, correct, and amend all errors, heresies, 
schisms, abuses, contempts, offences, and enormities what- 
soever." Under this clause originated the High Commis- 
HioN, an ecclesiastical court appointed by the Queen, and 
accountable to her alone, througli which for nearly half a 
century she and her bishops ruled with an iron rod over 



THE bishops' bible. 375 

the consciences of her subjects. The jurisdiction of this 
court extended over the whole kingdom, and included 
alike clergy and laity. Any three members of it were 
competent to inquire, " on the oath of twelve men, by wit- 
nesses, or by any other ways and means they could devise,"* 
respecting all offences against the Acts of Supremacy and 
Uniformity, " and also to inquire of all heretical opinions, 
seditious books, contempts, conspiracies, false rumors or 
talks, slanderous words and sayings, &c., contrary to the 
aforesaid laws, or any others ordained for the maintenance 
of religion in this realm, together with their abettors, 
counsellors, and coadjutors." Any three of them — the 
Primate or a bishop being one — were competent to try all 
cases of willful absence from the divine service, as estab- 
lished by law, and to punish the offenders by church cen- 
sures, or by fines levied on their lands, goods, and tene- 
ments. Any three of them might try the holder of any 
ecclesiastical living on matters of faith and doctrine, and 
eject him at their discretion. Any six of them, whereof 
some must be bishops, might " examine, alter, review, and 
amend the statutes of colleges, cathedrals, grammar-schools, 
and other public foundations." It was a part of their duty 
to tender the oath of supremacy to all ministers, and to re- 
port the names of such as refused it to the King's Bench. 
The most odious feature of this odious system, was the 
power vested in the Commissioners to summon before them 
any person, merely upon suspicion, and without exhibiting 
any charge against him, or confronting him with witnesses, 
to compel him, by the oath ex officio^ to testify against 

* " That is," says Neal, " by the inquiiiitioii, by the rack, by torture, or 
any ways and means that forty-four sovereign judges should devise ;" or, 
it should be added, any three of them. 



376 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

himself. Many were thus forced not only to convict them- 
selves, but their nearest relatives and friends. But no 
man was cleared on his own oath. This method of making 
a man his own accuser in a court of justice, was sufficiently 
detestable in the hands of a Romish Bishop or Chancellor ; 
but in them it was consistent. How Protestant bishops 
and statesmen could use it, and look a Papist in the face, 
is a riddle. The mandates of this court, or of any three 
of its members, were made binding on " all justices of 
peace, mayors, sheriffs, bailiffs, constables, and all other 
officers, ministers and subjects, in all and every place, ex- 
empt or not exempt, within the realm ; neglect of the same to 
be answered at their utmost perils."* They had their 
spies in ail suspected parishes, to note such as did not come 
regularly to church ; and these being summoned and com- 
mitted to prison, the keepers were to mark such as came 
to visit and relieve them, and give information accordingly, f 
A powerful ally to the High Commission was furnished 
by the Star Chamber, a criminal court, likewise appointed 
by the Queen, and responsible to her alone ; whose deci- 
sions, though merely expressions of the royal will, were 
made as binding as acts of Parliament. The High Com- 
mission, being an ecclesiastical court, had some limit in 
the nature of offences, and was not competent to inflicfc 
heavier penalties than fines, deprivation, and imprison- 
ment ; though in both these points it stretched its powers 
beyond all legal bounds. But whatever it could not do, 
the Star CLamber could ; and moreover, non-conformity 
to the established church being constituted disobedience 

* See Strypc'5 Lifo of Archbishop Grmdal, Appendix No. vi — The Ec* 
clesiastiral Commission granted to the High Commission, i^c. 
tNeal, Vol.1, p. 130. 



THE BISHOPS^ BIBLE. 27T 

to the realm, such ecclesiastical cases as required severer 
punishments than the former was competent to inflict^ 
could be turned over to the latter^ which had the power 
of life and death. Both bodies being composed in part of 
the same men, and the monarch supreme in both, they 
could play unchecked into each others hands • and they 
were, in fact, but the mutual complements of that system 
of despotic rule, by which she was able to override consti- 
tution and statute, and reduce her subjects to mere depen- 
dents on her supreme will and pleasure.* It was due 
alone to Elizabeth's great personal qualities ; her self-con- 
trol, which could sometimes forbear a present advantage 
rather than endanger a greater one to come ; her wisdom^ 
which could discern in the substantial prosperity of her 
realm the surest basis of her own supremacy, that the 
nation so long bowed patiently to her heavy yoke, and that 
even those who suffered most^ maintained to the last their 
loyalty and affection for her person, f 

* Even that last refuge of liberty, the right of petitioning against existing 
grievances, was denied by this imperious princess, and that not to private 
individuals alone, but to Parliament itself. In 1586, the House of Com- 
mons, having prayed for a modification in the Church Constitution, were told 
in reply that " Her Majesty took their petition herein to be against the 
prerogative of her crown. For by their full consents, it hath been confirmed 
and enacted, (as the truth herein requireth,) that the full power, authority, 
jurisdiction and supremacy in Church causes, which heretofore the Popes 
usurped and took unto themselves, should be annexed and united to the im- 
perial crown of this realm." — Strypes Life of IVhitgift^p. 260. 

t This was remarkably exemplified in the case of Mr. Stubbs, a student of 
Lincoln's Inn, and brother-in-law of that distinguished Nonconformist leader^ 
Thomas Cartright. Stubbs had written a tract against the Queen's projected 
marriage v;ith the Duke of Anjou, who, being a Papist, would, it wa& 
feared, be the means of restoring Eomanism in England ; and for the offence 
was condemned to lose his right hand. The instant the cruel sentence was 
executed, by driving a cleaver through his wrist with a mallet, he pulled oft 



378 THE ENGLISH BIBLK. 

The Queen had not far to look for instruments to 
carry out her plans. It was, at first, her hope that the 
Romish prelates who occupied the high positions of the 
church at her accession, would, as had been the case with 
Henry's bishops, acknowledge her supremacy and retain 
their places. This expectation proving vain, the Queen 
turned to the Reformed clergy. Had they, at this mo- 
ment, stood firmly united on the views entertained by the 
great majority, that a certain prescribed cut of the clerical 
garb must not be made the condition of ofl5ce in the Chris- 
tian church, what a glorious epoch might this have proved 
for the Reformation in England ! For at this period of 
its history there was no disagreement in respect to doc- 
trine, and none that was insurmountable in respect to disci- 
pline ; and Elizabeth and her counsellors were too wise to 
have allowed, on such grounds, a breach between herself 
and the united English clergy. Had but this seemingly 
little stumbling-block now been removed out of the way, 
the church would have been replenished with a learned, 
godly ministry, mellowed by recent suffering, yet glowing 
with that active, aggressive zeal for the Gospel which al- 
ways marks the growth-periods of the Christian body. 
But it was not so to be. When that which had hitherto 
been theory became a question of practice, many faltered in 
their convictions. Might it not be duty, they asked, to 
sacrifice their feelings on these unessential points, rather 
than leave the church wholly unfurnished with a Protest- 
ant ministry ? Should they not, indeed, by this present 
small compliance, be securing the power necessary to bring 
all things right in the end ? It was a tempting but a 

his hnt witli \ho remnining hand and cried with a loud voice, " God save the 
Queen!" 



THE bishops' bible. 379 

poisoned bait, as might soon be discerned by the change 
in the spirit of those who yielded. Some of the conform- 
ing bishops continued to regard the contested points as 
really matters of indiiFerence, and sometimes pleaded earn- 
estly for their brethren whom they had left; but the ma- 
jority quickly caught the temper of their royal head, and 
almost out-stripped her wishes, at least her views of 
what was prudent, by the vigor with which they pressed 
conformity. Thus did conscious power, unaccustomed 
wealth and the pride of place, gained by so slight a com- 
promise with conscience, corrupt men whose bearing under 
poverty, persecution and exile, had cast fresh lustre on the 
faith wiiich they professed. 

At this point, the Protestant host of England parted 
into two hostile bands, never again to reunite. On the 
one side was the rich and gorgeous Church, linked indis- 
solubly with the State ; an almost absolute sovereign their 
common head ; the whole legislative and executive power 
of the kingdom at their command. On the other were a 
few hundred ministers, confessedly the flower of the Eng- 
lish clergy, but in regard to all their temporal interests, 
their personal freedom and even life, wholly at the mercy 
of their antagonists. The friends of Protestantism abroad 
beheld the spectacle with mortification and dismay; and 
some of those who had most warmly urged on the adhe- 
rents of reform, now counselled compliance rather than 
allow a breach so disastrous to religion, so favorable to the 
resuscitation of Popery. We who can look back not only 
upon the conflict but its results, bless that immovable 
adherence to principle which refused to do evil that good 
might come. In the decision of those Puritan minis- 
ters, were involved not only the religious but the civil 



380 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

liberties of the English race. For it may safely be affirmed 
that, at the period now before us, no power less strong than 
conscience, the fear of sinning against God, could have 
strengthened men to oppose the sweeping tide of absolut- 
ism. Under the prevailing influences of the time, with a 
monarch like Elizabeth, at once despotic and popular, wise to 
govern and strong to defend her people, civil freedom would 
have been readily bartered for peace, security, and Protest- 
antism. But conscience was something which these men 
dared not barter. Resistance to oppression was here not a 
matter at their option, but a duty to God which they could 
not evade. Their example became the starting point of free 
ideas ; and the English people learned at length to ques- 
tion, whether they had been made for the sole purpose of 
being governed. 

The contest was at first rather of a negative character, 
consisting on the one side, more in a systematic neglect 
of the nonconforming clergy than in positive persecution ; 
and on their part in a persevering adherence to their own 
views of duty. The new Primate, Matthew Parker, had 
enough to do for a wdiile in securing his own position, and 
bringing into order that numerous body of the clergy, who 
still adhered to the doctrines of Popery. During this in- 
terval, the Act of Uniformity was not rigorously pressed, 
and a considerable number of ministers who had not sub- 
scribed it, made their way into inferior places in the 
church. These were the preachers of England. Where 
they were found, there was found also a new religious life 
among the people, and the errors and superstitions of Po- 
pery confessed a power in their zealous labors and holy 
examples, not acknowledged in parliamentary acts and 
royal injunctions. Among them was Miles Coverdale, 



THE bishops' bible. 381 

once Bishop of Exeter, more known and honored still as a 
Translator of the Bible into his mother tongue; but who 
was now thankful to be allowed, unpunished, to preach the 
Gospel here and there as he could find opportunity. Grin- 
dal. Bishop of London, a man of kind natural disposition, 
at length so far compassionated his gray hairs and pitiable 
state of poverty, as to procure for him in 1 562 the little 
parish of St. Magnus, London, without requiring conformity. 
Among them was also John Foxe, whose Bookof Martys had 
done more than any other work except the Bible, to estab- 
lish the Reformation in the people's hearts; but who was left 
unprovided for in the church which he had laid under so sa- 
cred a debt, till Cecil, the Queen's Secretary, obtained for 
him on his own terms, a prebendary in Salisbury church.* 
The universities, moreover, did not join in this wholesale 
proscription of men, for a matter of opinion which affected 
neither the doctrine nor the life. Sampsonf and Hum- 
phrey, then the great leaders of the nonconformist party, 
were both called to Oxford ; the first, .who had previously 
refused the bishopric of Norwich on the stipulated condi- 
tion , as Dean of Christ church, the other as President of Mag- 
dalen College, and were there held in the highest repute 
for their learning and virtue. Under these circumstances, 
the neglect of the prescribed habits and ceremonies had 
greatly increased in the church ; so that " the Queen," as 
Strype informs us, "■ had taken great offence at many of 



* In 1650, he describes himself in a letter to a friend, as a member "of the 
Order of Mendicants, or of the Friars-Preachers ;" and says that he was 
"still wearing the clothes that England received him in." 

f Sampson, it will be remembered, was one of the translators of the Ge- 
nevan Bible. 



382 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 



# 



tbe clergy, having information how remiss they were, both 
in the University and out of it, especially in the city of 
London, in wearing the habits appointed for the clergy to 
use in time of ministration and at other times ; chiefly the 
gquare cap, the tippet, and the surplice." So far indeed 
were the consecrated vestments from being regarded with 
due reverence, that they had become a jest and by-word 
with many both of the clergy and lait}^, who called them 
the ^'conjuring garments of Popery;'' while the Bishops 
themselves were dignified with the titles of '* White-Coats, 
and Tippet-Gentlemen." Some, moreover, had begun pro- 
fanely to encjuire : " Who gave them authority more over 
me than I over them, either to forbid me preaching, or 
to deprive me, unless they have it from their Holy 
Father the Pope ?"* Her Majesty, therefore, in January 
1564, directed her Archbishop and other bisliops of the 
High Commission, " that orders might be taken whereby 
all diversities and varieties among the clergy and laity, as 
breeding nothing but contention and breach of common 
charity, and against the laws and good usage and ordin- 
ances of the realm, might be reformed and repressed, and 
brought to one manner of uniformity throughout the 
realm." 

The Archbishop himself thought it now high time to 
look into these irregular proceedings, and to bring this 
free-spoken ministry into a wholesome subjection. The 
following' list of the dan;2:erous varieties in divine service 
then practised by clergymen, is quoted by Strype, from a 
manuscript copy found among the papers of Secretary 
Cecil, dated Feb. 14th, 1564 

* Strype' s Life of Archbishop Parker, p. 151. 



THE bishops' bible. 383 

"Varieties in the Service and Administration used. 

Service and Frayer. 
Some say the Service and Prayers in the chancel, others in the body of 
the Church. Some say the same in a seat made in the church ; some in the 
pulpit with their faces to the people. Some say it with a surplice, others 
without a surplice. 

Table. 
The table standeth in the body of the church in some places ; in others, it 
standeth in the chancel. In some places the table standeth altar- wise, dis- 
tant from the wall yard. In some places in the middle of the chancel, north 
and south. In some places the table is joined ; in others, it standeth upon 
tressels. In some it standeth upon a carpet ; in others it hath none. 

Adrtiinistration of the Communion. 
Some with surplice and cap ; some with surplice alone ; others with none. 
Some with chalice ; some with a communion cup ; others with a common 
cup. Some with unleavened bread ; some with leavened. 

Receiving. 
Some receive kneeling, others standing, others sitting. 

Baptizing. 
Some baptize in a font ; some in a basin. Some sign with the sign of 
the cross ; others sign not. Some minister in a surplice ; others without. 

Afforel. 
Some with a square cap ; some with a round cap ; some with a button cap ; 
some with a hat. Some in scholars' clothes ; some in others." 

It has been objected to the Puritans that their grounds 
of dissent were trivial, and insufficient to justify a schism 
in the Christian body. Since God regards merely the heart 
and not the dress, or place, or posture, why, it is urged, 
could they not have sacrificed their own feelings in these 
indifferent points, to the preservation of Christian unity ? 
To this argument they replied, at the time, that things in 
themselves indifferent changed their nature when imposed 
on the church of Christ as necessary, by a self-constituted 
power. They then became the test of a vital principle, 
viz., whether or not there resided in any individual, or in 



384 THE ENGLISH BIBLE, 

any body, ecclesiastical or civil, the competency of extra* 
Scriptural legislation for the -church; in other words, 
whether the Bible were the sufficient and only authoritative 
standard for the church in all matters, and as well in re- 
gard to her order and discipline as to her doctrine. Eliza- 
beth and her Primate held the negative of this question. 
They maintained, that it was from the necessities of the 
time alone that the apostolic churches received their pecu- 
liar form, which, therefore, was temporary and not to be 
accepted as the permanent model ; and that it belongs to 
the government of each country to settle the organization, 
rites, and observances, of that division of the church lying 
within its territory, and to enforce them on all its subjects. 
The Puritans, on the contrary, held to the sufficiency and 
binding authority of the Scriptures, in all respects ; and 
refused, by submission to ceremonies in themselves indif- 
ferent, to acknowledge what they believed an unlawful and 
indeed fatal principle. 

But they had a farther objection. What to the edu- 
cated and enlightened were things indifferent, were not so 
to the people. In their eyes, the clerical vestments stood 
for the doctrines with which they had been accustomed to 
associate them. Some, we are told, now regarded the sur- 
plice with a superstitious reverence scarcely exceeded by 
that once felt for the monk's cowl, a fragment of which was 
looked on as the possessor's sure passport to heaven. The 
embroidered cross on the cope was to them the symbol of 
image-worship. The kneeling posture at the supper, the 
chalice, and the hallowed wafer, to them recognized the 
Mass, a propitiatory sacrifice for sin. A still larger num- 
ber viewed all these things with horror, as the badge of 
that cruel faith which had lighted the fires of Smithfield, 



THE bishops' bible. S85 

and drauk the blood of their nearest relatives, friends, 
and neighbors, and of the faithful ministers of Christ. 
While, therefore, the Prelates were seeking to conceal the 
greenness of their new church from the popular eye under 
this garb of antiquity, and to soften the shock of change 
to the adherents of Popery by retaining whatever was 
possible of the shows of the old faith ; the Nonconforming 
clergy felt themselves bound, by the New Testament law 
of brotherly love, to countenance nothing which might cause 
their weak brother to offend ; and claimed that the church 
of Christ should be s«t forth before the eyes of the people, 
in sharpest outward contrast with the church of Anti- 
christ.* 

Thus, in regard to every thing external, the Church 
planted itself at this crisis on the Romish ground of tra- 

*It has always been the fashion with " liberal " historians, while they 
admit the great results to civil freedom from the position taken in this con- 
troversy by the Puritans, to sn«er at the position itself as that of narrow- 
minded bigots. Even Mr. Macauley seems not to have considered, in refer- 
ence to their case, (Hist. Eng., Vol. I, p. 50,) that things trivial in them- 
selves may become great by their relations and bearings. Eve's taking the 
apple was a very little thing in itself ; but as the exponent of a principle, it 
decided the fate of a world. William Tell' s refusal to take off his hat to 
Gessler's pole, was a v^ry little thing ; but it marked the dividing line be- 
tween Swiss slavery and Swiss freedom. The Stamp Act was a very small 
grievance ; but as a test-measure on the part of England, resistance to it 
became the turning-point of American independence. Of precisely this 
character was the prescripticm of clerical vestments, and of a certain unalter- 
able round of frivolous church forms ; and so was it regarded alike by those 
who urged and those who refused them. " Doth your Lordship think," thus 
writes Parker, on his death-bed, to Lord Burleigh, " that I care either for 
cap, tippet, surplice, wafer-bread, or any such 7 But for the law so estab- 
lished I esteem them. For contemp^t of Law and Authority would follow 
and be the end of it, unless discipline were used." — Strype^s Life qf Parker^ 
p. 492. 

17 



386 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

dition and hnman authority ; the Puritans took their posi- 
tion no less firmly on the great Protestant principle, — the 
Bible the only guide of faith and practice. 

Fully awake to the alarming spirit of innovation and inde- 
pendence now manifesting itself in the church, the Archbish- 
op and his coadjutors in the Commission immediately pre- 
pared a set of Articles for the regulation of divine service, to 
which universal and unvarying conformity should be required. 
He then proceeded to cite many Puritan ministers before the 
Commission, and endeavored by admonitions and threats 
to induce compliance. Sampson and Humphrey were sum- 
moned from their duties at Oxford ; and after being de- 
tained a year in attendance at the court, at great expense and 
discomfort to themselves, were deprived of their offices and 
thrown into prison, where Sampson remained some months. 
In 1564, a royal proclamation enjoiniog uniformity in appa- 
rel having been obtained from the Queen, the Archbishop 
took a still higher tone, and fell to the task of compelling 
men to think alike, in a spirit more befitting a Papal legate 
or inquisitor than a Protestant bishop. This year he cited 
the entire body of the pastors and curates of London, and 
required from them a promise and subscription under their 
own hands, to comply with the apparel prescribed by law. 
The 24th of March, 1564, was a dark day to the London 
clergy. No remonstrance, no discussion was permitted. 
Beside the commissioners stood one Robert Coles, (a Lon- 
don minister who had once refused the habits, but after- 
wards conformed,) arrayed in the prescribed vestments, 
square cap, tippet, and priest's robe, all according to statute. 
'* My masters and ye ministers of London," said the Bishop's 
Chancellor, " the council's pleasure is, that strictly 3^e keep 
the unity of apparel like to this man as you see him ; that 



TiiE bishops' bible. oS7 

is, a square cap, a scholar's gown priest-like, a tippet, and 
in the church a linen surplice ; and inviolably observe the 
rubric of the Book of Common Prayer, and the Queen's 
Majesty's Injunctions and the Book of Convocation. Ye 
that will subscribe, write Volo ; ye that will not sub- 
scribe, write Nolo. Be brief. Make no words." When 
some of the unhappy men, many of whom had wives and 
children depending for support on their small stipends, 
attempted to speak, — '' Peace, peace !" cried the Chancel- 
lor. "Apparitor, call over the churches, and ye masters 
answer presently svhpmia contemjjtus,'^'' " By these re- 
solute doings," adds the grave narrator, " were many of 
the incumbents and ministers present mightily surprised." 
Of the ninety-eight, sixty-one were induced, though with 
much difficulty, to subscribe ; and we cannot doubt, that 
of these many returned to their homes with a heavier load 
than a starving family on their hearts. Some cried out in 
the anguish of their spirits : " We are killed in the soul of 
our souls for this pollution of ours !" Thirty-seven stead- 
fastly refused to set their hands to a lie ; and were imme- 
diately suspended from all exercise of the ministerial vo- 
cation, and threatened with deprivation if they did not 
conform within three months. These, by Parker's own 
admission, were the choicest members of the London 
clergy.* 

These measures were followed by a set of injunctions 
for the London clergy, ''such," says Neal, ''as had never 

* Strype's Lives of Archbishops Grindal and Parker. The incidents of 
the above account are taken from the former work, where they are most 
fully given ; the number of ministers present, and the proportion between 
the subscribers and n^onsubseribers, from the latter ; which being the later 
work, and the statement made on the authority of Archbishop Parker, who 
had the names before him, is undoubtedly correct. 



388 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

been heard of in a Protestant kingdom or a free govern- 
ment." Every clergyman who had cure of souls was obliged 
to swear obedience: *' 1. To all the Queen's injunctions 
and letters patent ; 2. To all letters from lords of the privy 
council; 3. To the articles and injunctions of the metro- 
politan; 4. To the articles and mandates of their bishop, 
archdeacon, chancellors, somners, receivers, &c., and in a 
word to be subject to the control of all their superiors 
with patience." To forestall all possibility of evading 
these demands, from four to eight informers were appoint- 
ed in each parish to watch over the conformity of both clergy 
and laity, and give their testimony accordingly, whenever 
required. 

Could men with any conscience, with a spark of honor 
or self-respect, submit to a slavery like this ? Miles Co- 
verdale could not keep his little living on these terms ; 
but old and infirm as he was, being now eighty years of 
age, he preferred to risk the bread and shelter for his last 
days rather than soil his conscience. But he felt in his 
soul a commission as minister of Christ which no mortal 
could recall ; and he continued, though with much fear and 
caution, to preach the Gospel in and about London till near 
his death in 15G7. It had been determined to make an 
example of John Foxe, by way of striking terror into his 
less distinguished brethren. But the sturdy old Puritan 
was more than a match for them. When required to sub- 
scribe, he drew his Greek New Testament from his pocket, 
saying : '' To this will I subscribe." To the threat of de- 
privation he replied: "I have nothing in the church but a 
prebend in Salisbury, and much good may it do you if you 
take it from me." Their resolution failed, and they did 
not venture to touch a man so dear to the whole nation as 
the historian of the martyrs. 



THE bishops' bible. 389 

A letter addressed in 1566 by Coverdale, Sampson and 
Humphrey to several of the leading Swiss Reformers, gives 
some idea of the state of distress then existing. 

" Our affairs," they write, " are not altered for the better, but, alas ! are 
sadly deteriorated. For it is now settled and determined that an unlea- 
vened cake must be used in place of common bread ; that the communion 
must be received by the people on their bended knees ; that out of doors 
must be worn the square cap, bands, a long gown, and tippet ; while the 
white surplice and cope are to be retained in divine service. And those who 
refuse to comply with these requirements, are deprived of their estates, dig- 
nities, and every ecclesiastical office ; viz., brethren by brethren and bishops, 
whose houses are, at this time, the prisons of some jDreachers ; who are now 
raging against their own bowels ; who are now imposing these burdens not 
only on their own persons, but also on the shoulders of others ; and this too at 
a time when, in the judgment of all learned men, they ought to have been 
removed and abolished altogether." 

But this is not the place for the details of that memora- 
ble conflict. The brief sketch just given of its incipient 
stages, exhibits its grounds and the spirit in which it was 
conducted, sufficiently for the purposes of our present his- 
tory. As was inevitable, the breach continually widened. 
Multiplied exactions and increased rigor on the one side, 
rising at length to a denial of all the inborn rights of man, 
freedom of action, speech and thought, were met by increased 
firmness of resistance, and a bold questioning of the very 
foundations of the church, from which the persecuted had 
at first only differed in some minor particulars. The 
weapons used by the two great parties in the conflict, were 
in harmony with the fundamental principles on which they 
had respectively taken their stand. On the side of the 
ruling party, the forcible repression of discussion ; the 
limitation and rigid censorship of tjie press ;* the monopoly 

* See the " Rules and Ordinances made and set forth by the Archbishop 
of Canterbury and Lords of the Privy Council, in the Star Chamber, for 



B90 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

of schools;* the seizure of pious men and women who had 
met quietly to worship God ; the inquisitorial tribunals 
which arraigned men on suspicion, and condemned them 
on their own forced confessions, or the testimony of secret 

redressing abuses in Printing;" Strype's Life of Whitgift, Appendix, No. 
XXIV. By this extraordinary instrument every printer was required to 
deliver within ten days from its date, an inventory of the number of his 
presses and of all his implements, on pain of their seizure and destruction, 
and twelve months' personal imprisonment " without bail or mainprize." 
Ko person should hereafter set up a press anywhere except in London and 
its suburbs, (one excepted in each University,) nor within those limits ex- 
cept by leave of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London, on the 
same penalty; with the addition of being disabled forever from owning or 
managing a press, or being connected with the business in any way except 
as a journeyman for wages. No person should continue to use or occupy a 
press erected within the previous six months, on the penalty first named. 
No person should print a book not authorized by the Archbishop of the 
Bishop of London, on penalty of the loss of his instruments, six months' im- 
piisonment without bail, and perpetual disability to exercise or derive any 
benefit from his trade. No person should sell, bind, stich, or sew any book 
not thus authorized on pain of three months' imprisonment. All workshops 
and warehouses, of printers, booksellers, and bookbinders, and all private 
houses were to be open to search for books printed in contrariety to these or- 
dinances, and all persons implicated in the printing, selling, uttering, bind- 
ing, stitching, or sewing of the same, to be apprehended for trial before the 
High Commission, or three of its members, the Archbishop of Canterbury or 
Bishop of London beingone. '' For the avoiding of the excessive number of 
Frinters in this realm, ^' it is made unlawful for any printer, bookseller, 
or bookbinder in London to keep more than three apprentices, and 
for the printers at Oxford and Cambridge more than a single apprentice at 
one time. Under those regulations, the Press seemed likely to become a 
very dutiful handmaid of the monarchy and priesthood ; but the result re- 
flects little glory on the sagacity of those Avho devised them. 

* In 1591 it was made a pro-requisite to a schoolmaster's license, that ho 
should take the oath of supremacy and subscribe the Articles of Uniformity ; 
a measure " thought convenient," says Strype, »*to prevent the influence 
the Puritans might have on the minds of children."— Life of Whitgift, 
p. 377. 



THE bishops' bible. 391 

informers,* to prison, exile, mutilation and hanging; take 
us back to the days of Henry IV, and we ask with a be- 
wildered feeling, ^^ Is this the Reformation ?" On the 
other side, in the measures of the Puritans we recognize 
those moral weapons with which the victories of truth have 
ever been won ; viz., the calm but unflinching exercise of 
the rights of conscience, and the steadfast passive endur- 
ance of the penalties thereby incurred. They preached, 
they wrote, they petitioned, and they suffered, through 
more than a generation, with a resolution and constancy 
which nothing could subdue. The usual result followed. 
The cause of the persecuted grew by being trodden on ; 
and before the sceptre dropped from the hand of the aged 
Queen, not only a majority of the middle and lower ranks 
and of the House of Commons, but a powerful party in the 
Court itself, gave their entire sympathy to the advocates 
of religious freedom. The end of the battle was indeed yet 
far off; but the moral convictions of the nation indicated 
with prophetic certainty what that end would be. 

* When Udal, a Non-conformist preacher, was; in 1590, tried for his life, 
at the Court of Assize in Croydon, (having had a preliminary trial on the 
same charges before the Commission, and suffered a year's imprisonment 
uncondemned,) no witnesses against him were brought into court, but the 
registrar merely swore to their examinations. When the prisoner, standing 
before his judges with his legs in irons, offered to produce witnesses in his 
defence, he was told that ' because the witnesses were against the Queen's 
Slajestv, they coujd not be heard 1" — Neal, Vol, I, p. 191. ^ 



CHAPTER XIX., 



THE BISHOPS^ BIBLE CONTINUED. 

It was near the close of the year 1565, j-ust as the plans 
of Archbishop Parker for the repression of dissent were 
fully matured, and he had fairly entered on the work tc^ 
which the remaining ten years of his life were devoted, whea 
John Bodleigh made his application to Cecil in behalf of 
the Genevan Version. 

With the events narrated in the preceding chapter be^ 
fore the mind, it is easy to see the relations of the course 
then adopted in reference to that version, to the general 
policy by which the Primate sought to secure universal 
conformity to the State Church. 

The Bible " authorized to be read in churches," was 
Cranmer's Revision, the Great Bible, so-called, which had 
never been in high repute for its critical accuracy, and was 
now wholly eclipsed by the superior scholarship of the Gene^ 
van Version. Thelatter was the Bible of the Puritans. The 
associations of its birth were Presbyterian. It stood 
forth before the eyes of the nation, as the symbol at once 
of Progress and of Dissent ; while it was^ at the same time^ 
the most efficient agent in awakening the popular mind to 
the claims of religion^ and planting therein the principles 



THE bishops' bible CONTINUED. 393 

of godliness and virtue. And thus it happened that just 
in proportion to the extent of its usefulness, was it dan- 
gerous to the peculiar interests of the Establishment. A 
Popish Bishop in the Primate's place, would have laid his 
hands at once on this source of schism ; neither hesitating 
to denounce it as unsafe for the ignorant and undiscrimi- 
nating rabble, nor to dispose of it by the summary method 
of seizure and bonfires. This the spirit of Protestantism, 
a spirit created by the Bible itself, would no longer allow. 
Nor indeed have we any ground for supposing that Arch- 
bishop Parker would have resorted to violence, though he 
had been fully sustained by public opinion. Nevertheless, 
it was essential to his plans that the church, which claimed 
to be the exclusive spiritual authority in the realm, should 
also be the exclusive spiritual teacher. To her, and not 
to any rival influence, must the people look for the supply 
of their religious wants, and for every privilege which they 
enjoyed as a Christian nation. 

To the Protestant bishop, two courses lay open for ac- 
complishing this object : the one, by drawing tlie Ijl-enevan 
Version within the consecrated pale, and stamping it with 
episcopal patronage, to engraft on the popular favorite as- 
sociations advantageous to the church ; the other, to su- 
persede it by a new version, emanating directly from the 
church.* The first was attempted unsuccessfully. Mr. 
Bodleigh did not accede to their proposal, of pledging 
himself never to bring out an edition without their " ad- 

* This, probably, was the ultimate design in any case. The Genevan 
Bible might be made to answer a good purpose, till the new version was 
ready to be "set forth by authority," after which it would be at their own 
choice to suppress it at once, or to withdraw it gradually from public view, as 
should seem most judicious. 

17* 



394 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

vice, consent, and direction;" and as the consequence, for 
more than ten years longer, or till 1576, the Family Bible 
of England was never printed on English ground, and the 
first English impression immediately followed the death 
of Archbishop Parker.* Public sentiment ascribed this 
delay, which of course much impeded its circulation, to the 
jealousy of the Bishops ; and it was thought a sore griev- 
ance that a version of the Bible, which could be charged 
with no fault, should be thus arbitrarily kept from the 
multitudes who were hungering and thirsting for its ii;- 
structions. The second course, that of preparing a new 
version, was within the Primate's own control ; and at the 
time of Mr. Bodleigh's application, measures were already 
in progress for this object. The result appeared in the 
year 1568, when the so-called Bishops' Bible was given 
to the public. 

Strype, in his Life of Parker, thus speaks of the design, 
and of the method pursued in executing it : 

*' AmoDff the noble designs of this Archbishop, must be reckoned his re- 
solution to have the Holy Bible set forth, well translated into the vulgar 
tongue, for private use, as well as for the use of churches ; and to perform 
that which his predecessor. Archbishop Cranmer, endeavored so much to 
bring to pass, but could not, (the Bishops in his days being most of them 
utterly averse to any such thing) that Is, that the Bishops should join to- 
gether, and take their parts and portions in revising, amending and setting 
forth, the English translation of those Holy books. This our present Arch- 

* Strype, in accounting for the failure of Bodleigh's application, remarks 
somewhat naively : " Whatever the cause were, it was not surely from any 
discouragement the translation received from the Bishops. For they, by 
the fore-quoted letter, under their hands, like and approve it, and recom- 
mend the undertakers to the Secretary, to procure for them the Queen's 
license to reprint it. Unless the reason were that they were loth to sub- 
scribe to the terms that were demanded by the Bishops." — Life of Pai-ker, 
p. 207. 



THE bishops' bible CONTINUED. 395 

bishop's thoughts much ran upon. And he hfid about this time (1565) dis- 
tributed the Bible, divided into parts, to divers of his learned fellow-bishops, 
and to some other divines that were about him, who cheerfully undertook the 

work The Archbishop took upon him the labor to contrive and set 

the whole work agoing in a proper method, by sorting out the whole Bible 
into parcels, as was said, and distributing these parcels to the Bishops and 
other learned men to peruse, and collate each, the book or books allotted 
them ; sending withal his instructions for the method they should observe ; 
and they to add some short marginal notes, for the illustration or correction 
of the text. And all these portions of the Bible being finished, and sent 
back to the Archbishop, he was to add the last hand to them, and so to take 
care for printmg and publishing the whole." 

Fifteen learned men, most of them Bishops, were em- 
ployed on this work. The precise time when it was com- 
menced is not known ; but it could not have been later 
than 1564, as we find Sandys, Bishop of Worcester, ready 
with his portion (Judges, Kings, and Chronicles,) at the 
beginning of the next year. In a letter which accompanied 
it, he urges the prosecution of the revision in the most tho- 
rough manner ; '^ that it may be done in such perfection, 
that the adversaries can have no occasion to quarrel with 
it. Which thing," he adds, '^ will require a time. Sed sat 
citOj si sat bene ''''—[but soon enough^ if well enougJi.'] In 
accordance with this sound advice, the work seems to have 
been performed with praiseworthy diligence ; though, from 
causes presently to be mentioned, not with very satisfac- 
tory results. It was published in 1568. 

Archbishop Parker's Preface to the new Bible contains 
many sensible and pious thoughts, and breathes a liberal 
Protestant spirit, widely in contrast with that displayed in 
his treatment of Nonconformists. The remembrance of 
that treatment, and of his previous indifi'erence to the cry 
of the nation for a more abundant supply of the Scriptures, 



396 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

does indeed mnch qualify the pleasure with which we should 
otherwise read it. Had he felt Cranmer^s enthusiasm for 
the principles of the Eeformation, and that its sheet-anchor 
was the Bible, his course would have been different. But 
it is too evident that Episcopacy was still dearer to him 
than the Keformation, and that his reliance for its establish- 
ment was the sword of the magistrate rather than the word 
of God. And hence, while he was pursuing '^ the precise 
hretliren^'^ (his favorite designation of the dissenters,) with 
deadly animosity, silencing faithful preachers, and impris- 
oning Christian people who sought spiritual nourishment 
elsewhere than from empty pulpits, or those filled by in- 
competent, worldly, or vicious men, by his own confession 
^^ very many churches wanted Bibles?^ Nor can he be 
charged merely with neglect in this particular, when his 
influence was employed for the discouragement, against 
the earnest wishes of the people, of a version whojie excel- 
lencies he could not deny. Yet with alii^chese abatements, 
we cannot but rejoice over sentiments like the following, 
from the pen of the rigorous Primate ; for they indicate a 
public opinion in favor of the Bible, too deeply rooted 
and too full of life to be safely resisted or neglected, by 
the highest in place and strongest in power. 

"Antichrist must he be, that, under whatsoever color, would give contrary 
precept or counsel to that which Christ did give us. Very little do they re- 
semble Christ's loving spirit, moving us to search for our comfort, that will 
discourage us from such searching, or that would wish ignorance or forget- 
fulness of his benefits to reign in us, so that they might, by our ignorance, 
reign the more frankly in our consciences, to the danger of our salvation. 
Who can take the light from us in this miserable vale of blindness, and not 
mean to have us stumble, in the paths of perdition, to the ruin of our souls? 
Who will envy us this bread of life, prepared and set on the table for our 
c+ornMi «nst inonco, and nionn not to famish us, or instead thereof, with their 



THE bishops' bible CONTINUED. 397 

corrupt traditions and doctrines of men, to infect us 7 ... . Search, there- 
fore, good reader, (in God's name,) as Christ biddeth thee, the Holy Scrip- 
tures, wherein thou mayest find thy salvation. Let not the volume of this 
book, (by God's own warrant,) depart from thee ; but occupy thyself there- 
in in the whole journey of this thy worldly pilgrimage, to understand thy 
way how to walk rightly before Him all the days of thy life." 

In reference to the cavils of the Eomanists, who decried 
every existing translation into the mother tongue, jet 
never themselves put hand to the work of supplying one 
which was more correct, he makes the pertinent inquiry : 

*' What manner of translation may men think to look for at their hands, 
if they should translate the Scriptures, to the comfort of God's elect, which 
they never did, nor be not like to propose it, but be rather studious only to 
seek quarrels in other men's well-doings, to pick fault where none is ; and 
where any is escaped through human negligence, then to cry out with their 
tragical exclamations, but in no wise to amend, by the spirit of charity and 
lenity, that which might be more aptly put?" 

In apologizing for thus adding another translation to 
the many previously made, he quotes the words of Au- 
gustine, that ^' though in the primitive church the late in- 
terpreters which did translate the Scriptures be innumer- 
able, yet wrought this rather a help than an impediment 
to the readers, if they be not too negligent. For, saith 
he, divers translations have made, many times, the harder 
and darker sentences the more open and plain." The Arch- 
bishop pleads, therefore, that no one should take offence 
at this new attempt at translation, inasmuch as it was 
neither intended to reflect on any other, or to claim per- 
fection, " as that hereafter might follow no other that 
might see that which as yet was not understanded." In 
these remarks, the x\rchbishop probably had one eye on 
those who opposed all change in the authorized version as 
a dangerous innovation ; and the other on the Puritans, 



398 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

T^-hose attacliment to tlieir favorite version was not wholly 
free from party prejudice, many of them being unable, as 
was said, " to see the sense of Scripture, except through 
the Genevan spectacles." 

And yet, with these liberal sentiments on the face of his 
translation, the Archbishop's first move after its comple- 
tion, was the attempt to obtain from the Queen an exclu- 
sive license for it as the one " to be onhj commended in 
public reading in churches, to draw to one uniformity?'^ 
This favor he requests, " not only as many churches want 
their books, but as that in certain places be publicly used 
some translations which have not been labored in this 
realm."* In other words, two grievances are to be re- 
dressed by her Majesty's countenance of the new version ; 
the churches destitute of Bibles are to be supplied, and 
the churches supplied with the Genevan version are to ex- 
change them for the one furnished and authorized by her 
Majesty and the Bishops. 

The Bishops' Bible was, in some respects, an advance 
on that of Cranmer. The omission of the additions from 
the Vulgate was a marked improvement ; and many single 
passages were changed for the bettor (some also for the 
worse) by the substitution of the Genevan renderings. 
But it contributed little that was new to the stock of 
biblical knowledge. For this there were several causes. 
First and chiefly, the want of profound scholarship in tlie 
translators — learning being made subordinate to official 
position, in the selection of translators, by the object dc- 
Higned to be secured. The new Bible must be as good as 
Bishops could make it ; but it must be a Bishops' Bible. 
England did not lack for scholars. The same men whose 

* P:,rl-or'^ Lr'Uer to Cocil, quott-l in An 1."v-:r,.,V: A.nn>l.. Vol, TT. p. '>'^3. 



BIBLE CONTINUED. 899 

ripe learniDg had produced the Genevan version, still lived 
in the prime and fullness of their powers, and there were 
other English scholars in all respects their equals. But 
it was the silent policy of the church to recognize no merit 
in Nonconformists ; and unfortunately, the best talent and 
culture of the realm were thus buried from public use. 
Another cause of the inferiority of the version, was the 
rule laid down by Archbishop Parker, of deviating as little 
as possible from the old authorized version ; a rule which 
must necessarily produce a superficial work, whatever may 
be the ability of the scholars by whom it is executed. 
To this rule there was, indeed, one remarkable exception. 
The uniform rendering of ecdesia by congregation^ formed 
one of the characteristic features of the earlier versions, 
and was accounted of primary importance, as representing 
to the English mind the generic idea of visible Christian- 
ity as a community of equals. This was the point in Tyn- 
dale's version, against which Sir Thomas More directed 
his most powerful batteries. Coverdale, though allowing 
a false liberality to give a Popish tinge to his version ill 
some other respects, never deviated in this from the Pro- 
testant principle. Cranmer, though his zeal for the An- 
glican church was not scrupulous in its choice of means, 
maintained this feature of the English Bible in unimpaired 
integrity. In the '' authorized version," as left by him 
and found by Archbishop Parker, ecdesia is rendered, in 
every instance without exception, " congregation."* It 
was therefore a very bold step, when the latter took the 
responsibility of a total change in this particular, by uni- 
formly displacing '^ congregation," and putting ^' church" 

* The word " church" occurs but once in Cranmer's Bible, and then as 
the translation of the Greek word for a temple or sacred edifice. 



400 TJIE ENOLTSII BIBLE. 

in its stead.* Tlie controversy was no new one to him. 
He has himself recorded that this was one of the matters 
in debate when the Synod of Bishops, under Henry YIIL, 
took into consideration the subject of a new translation. 
'' There was then," says he,t " a discussion [in the Synod] 
about the significance and force of certain words ; as 
whether Domimis should be rendered from the sacred 
writings in English ' the Lord ' or ' our Lord ;' and whether 
ecclesia should be translated ^ the cono;ref>:ation ' or ' the 
church ;' also, whether caritas should be expressed by 
^ charity ' ^ ^ love.' " He knew well which was the 
Protestant and which the Komish ground in this debate. 
His choice of the latter needs no explanation, except that 
furnished by the character of the rejected word, as indi- 
cating the original democratic constitution of the Christian 
body. The time had now come, when Sir Thomas More's 
idea of The Church was to be realized in Protestant Eng- 
land ; and the Primate saw, with Sir Thomas, that this 
could not be done so long as the true idea still lay on the 
face of the vernacular Bible. In this. King James' Re- 
vision followed that of the Bishops ; and thus the word 
for which Tyndale had so earnestly contended, the word 
which had stood on the sacred page as an incorruptible 
witness against priestly usurpation, was thenceforward 

* With a remarkable exception in Matt. 16 : 18. There, the rendering 
of Cranmer's Bible was suffered to remain unchanged — ^^ And I say also 
unto thee that thou art Peter; and upon this rockl uill build my congre- 
gationV The troublesome use of this passage by the rival church of Rome, 
sufficiently explains this silent deviation from uniformity. The only other 
instance is Hebrews 12 : 23— "yl7?rf unto the congregation of thcjirst horUy 
which are icritten in heavenV The constitution of the church milit:mt wna 
the object of tlio Primate's soliL-itudo — not thnt of the church trlumi h;int. 

t Dc Antiq. Britan. Kcclo. p. 505 ; (Harvard Library ) 



THE bishops' bible CONTINUED. 4Q1 

blotted from the English Scriptures. In this feature of 
the Bishops' Bible, we find a motive for the undertaking, 
nob less strong than the opposition felt to the general in- 
fluence of the Genevan version.* We can now understand 
how this Bible, if established by authority as the only one 
to be publicly read in churches, might play an important 
part '' in drawing to one uniformity." 

It was but natural that Archbishop Parker should wish 
to secure to the English Church, (to use the term in the 
Primate's sense) the ac^vantage of furnishing the Bible 
both for public worship and for the private use of the 
people. Had he sought this object with a liberality suited 
to his vast income, and in a manner worthy of so difficult 
and so sacred a work ; employing the best scholars, fur- 
nishing them with the needed apparatus, and requiring 
from them nothing but a faithful rendering of the inspired 
original ; the good and wise of every age, and of every di- 
vision of the Christian body, would have honored him as 
one of the world's benefactors. The savor of episcopal 
associations thus transferred to the English Bible, would 
have been fairly earned. But no man, no church, has the 
right, for any purpose, to make God's word speak differ- 
ently from itself; t or to obscure its meaning even in the 
smallest particular, to the common eye. As the first Eng- 

* The Genevan version used the words "church" and " congregation" in- 
terchangeably, and with about equal frequency. This variation from the 
practice of the previous versions, had perhaps some connection with the 
State-church element of the Presbyterianism of that time ; but it at least 
respected the rights of the English reader, by giving, with the ecclesiastical 
term, the English term which clearly defined and explained it. 

f A singular example of this is furnished by the suggestion of Guest, 
bishop of Rochester ; viz., of conforming those passages in the Psalms, quoted 
in the New Testament from the Septuagint, to the readings there found, — 
" for the avoiding," as he writes to Parker, " of the offence that may rise to 
people upon divers translations."— Strype's Life of Parker, p. 208, 



€02 THE ENGLISH BIBL^. 

Hsh version undertaken for a less generous object than 
the extension of truth, and executed on the principle of 
making as little advance as the requirements of the ago 
would permit, it must be regarded bj the true Protestant 
rather with regret than satisfaction. 

In 1572, a revised edition of the Bishops' Bible was 
published, to which Lawrence, a Greek scholar celebrated 
for his critical accuracy, contributed a number of emenda- 
tions.* In 1584, under Archbishop Whitgift, the readings 
from the Vulgate, omitted by the first revisers, but which 
had been retained unmarked in the Book of Common 
Prayer, were replaced in the Bishops' Bible. It was im- 
portant to the Church that her Bible and her Liturgy 
should show no disagreement ; and since the latter could 
not be altered without the concurrence of the Queen and 
Parliament, the old readings were quietly slipped back 
into the Bible ; and, in order to complete the uniformit}^, 
they were left unmarked as in the Prayer Book. Seven- 
teen of these interpolations occur in the Book of Psalms, 
one of them (in Ps. xiv.) including three entire verses. 
This is the most remarkable instance of deliberate impo- 
sition, found in the history of Protestant Bible Translation. 

This version passed through twenty-nine editions, most 
of them folios and quartos for public religious service, 
during the reign of Elizabeth ; and it continued to hold 
its place in King James' reign, while his revision wns in 
preparation. A few small-sized editions were printed for 
use in families ; but it never became a popular favorite. 
The last edition appeared in IGOS ; and three years after, 
it was superseded, as the Bible of Churches, by the Com- 
mon Version. 

* A liBt of these is given by Strype, in the Appendix to tho Life of Parker. 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE RHEMISII, OR DOUAY BIBLE. 

The year 1582 witnessed a phenomenon in the history 
of English Bible translation; viz., a versioD of the New 
Testament emanating from the llnmish church. This was 
not, however, the result of any change of principle in that 
venerable institution in regard to vernacular translation 
and the use of the Bible among the laity ; but merely a 
change of policy suited to the exigencies of the time. The 
work was executed by several English Catholics, all of 
whom had once been connected with the University of 
Oxford, but who, on Elizabeth's accession, had fled to the 
continent and found refuge in the Romish seminaries of 
Douay and Rheims. In their preface they explicitly de- 
clare : 

'' That they do not publish it upon an erroneous opinion of its being 
necessary that the Holy Scriptures should always be in our mother-tongue, 
or that they ought to be read indifferently of all, or could be easily under- 
stood of every one that reads or hears them in a known language ; or that 
they generally or absolutely judged it more convenient in itself or more 
agreeable to God's word and honor, or the edification of the faithful, to have 
them turned into vulgar tongues, than to be kept and studied only in the ec- 
clesiastical languages. But they translated this sacred book upon special 
consideration of the present time, state and condition of their country, unto 
which divers things were either necessary or profitable and medic"nab'e 
now, that otherwise, in the peace of the church were neither much requi- 
site, nor perchance, wholly tolerable." 



404 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

With regretful fondness, they look back to the happy 
days of the primitive church, when, as they maintain, " it 
was not permitted even to those who understood the 
learned languages wherein the Scriptures were written, to 
read, reason, dispute, turn and toss the Scriptures ; nor 
might every schoolmaster that had a little Greek and 
Latin, straight take in hand the holy Testament ; nor were 
the translated Bibles put into the hands of every husband- 
man, artificer, prentice, boys, girls, mistress, maid and 
man." In those good times, the Bible was kept *' in libra- 
ries, monasteries, colleges, churches, in Bishops', priests', 
and some other devout principal laymen's houses and hands ; 
and the poor ploughman, while tilling the ground, could 
sing the hymns and psalms either in known or unknown 
tongues, as they heard them in holy church, though they 
could neither read, nor knew the sense, meaning and mys- 
teries of the same." 

It cannot be claimed that the Rhemish and Douay trans- 
lators represent, in this respect, merely the " obscu- 
rantists" of the Bomish church. The most distinguished 
members of her communion, illustrious by their own 
scholarship and by their zealous promotion of learning 
among the clergy, have spoken the same language in every 
age. We have already remarked this in regard to Cardi- 
nal Wolsey and Sir Thomas More. An equally striking 
instance is furnished by the policy of Cardinal Ximenes, 
after the conquest and " conversion " of Granada. Tala- 
vera, the benevolent Bishop of the subjugated province, 
had much at heart the completion of a translation of the 
Scriptures into the vulgar Arabic for circulation amon<]; 
tlie Moorish converts. This purpose was sternly overruled 
by his superior. " It would be throwing pearls before 



THE RHEMISH OR DOUAY BIBLE. 405 

swine," said Ximenes in reply to Talavera's arguments, 
*^ to open the Scriptures to persons in their low state of 
ignorance, who could not fail, as St. Paul says, to wrest 
them to their own destruction. The word of God should 
be wrapped in discreet mystery from the vulgar, who feel 
little reverence for what is plain and obvious. It was for 
this reason that our Saviour himself clothed his doctrines 
in parables, when he addressed the people. The Scrip- 
tures should be confined to the three ancient languages, 
which God, with mystic import, permitted to be inscribed 
over the head of his crucified Son; and the vernacular 
should be reserved for such devotional and moral treatises 
as holy men indite, in order to quicken the soul and turn 
it from the pursuit of worldy vanities to heavenly contem- 
plation."* 

And this was the man who founded and endowed the 
University of Alcala, for the education of the Spanish 
clergy ; who projected that splendid monument of sacred 
learning, the Complutensian Polyglott, and defrayed the 
enormous expenses of the undertaking out of his own in- 
come ! The aim in these and similar labors in the Romish 
Church, was to increase and consolidate the power of the 
priesthood, by raising it to an unapproachable height above 
the laity. 

In what then consisted the necessity for so striking a 
deviation from the immemorial policy of the church, as the 
publication of the New Testament for general distribution 
in the vulgar tongue ? This the translators explain with 
equal frankness. It was the spreading poison of Pro- 
testant VERSIONS ; wherein, as they affirm, God's law 

* Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella, ch. VI, last p. Note ; and 
Hefele, Der Cardinal Ximenes, S. 63. 



406 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

and testament and Christ's written will and word are coi 
rupted both in letter and sense, in order to make then; 
agree with the false doctrines of their new religion. They 
gay: 

" In pure compassion, therefore, to see their beloved countrymen with ex- 
treme danger of their souls, to use only such profane translations and erro- 
neous men's mere fancies, and being also much moved thereto by the de- 
sires of many devout persons, they had set forth the New Testament trust- 
ing that it might give occasion to them, after diligently perusing it, to lay 
away at least such their impure versions as hitherto they had been forced 
to use. . . . They had also set forth reasonable large Annotations, thereby 
to shew the studious reader, in most places pertaining to the controversies 
of the time, both the heretical corruptions and false deductions, and also the 
apostolic tradition, the expositions of the holy fathers, the decrees of the 
Catholic church and most ancient councils." 

Thirty years after, 1609 — 10, the version was comple- 
ted by the publication at Douay of the Old Testament, 
which had all this time been delayed by want of the neces- 
sary pecuniary means, — no very flattering index of the 
zeal of the infallible church for the diffusion of the Scrip- 
tures. 

The principles observed in the preparation of their work, 
were worthy of the motives from which it was undertaken. 
It was made from the Latin Vulgate, in preference to the 
Greek and Hebrew Scriptures. " The Latin," they said, 
^'was most ancient; it was corrected by St. Jerome, com- 
mended by St. Augustine, and used and expounded by the 
Fathers ; the holy council of Trent had declared it to be 
authentical ; it was the gravest, sincerest, of greatest ma- 
jesty, and the least partiality ; and in regard to the New 
Testament, was exact and precise according to the Greek; 
preferred by Bcza himself to all other translations, and 
was truer than the vulgar Greek text itself." This last 



THE RHEMISH OR DOUAY BIBLE. 407 

pretension, which might have been made with reason in re- 
ference to the original text of the Vulgate, (whose date was 
older bj several centuries than the Greek manuscripts then 
in the possession of Protestant scholars,) became ridiculouy 
when applied to those modern copies of it, which embodied 
the mistakes and corruptions of its successive monkish 
transcribers through more than a thousand years. Many 
attempts had been made for its restoration, but with con- 
fessedly little success. In 1589, Pope Sixtus V. made a 
very earnest effort for this purpose ; and published an edi 
tion prefaced by a bull declaring it to be ^^true, lawful^ 
authentic, and undoubted." The very next Pope sup- 
pressed this edition as inaccurate ; and his successor sent 
forth in 1592 another edition, not only varying from it, 
but absolutely contrary to it, in many points. Such was 
the text to which the Rhemish and Douay translators ap- 
pealed, as the infallible representative of the inspired 
word. 

Another characteristic feature of the work was the 
transfer of a multitude of words and phrases, untranslated, 
which by long usage had acquired a specific application to 
the doctrines, ceremonies, and discipline of the Romish 
Church. These, in their own words, "they kept exactly, 
as catholic terms." Many others also were retained, ap- 
parently for the purpose of throwing an air of mystery over 
the Scriptures, as too profound and sacred to be under- 
stood by the common reader. 

No more convincing evidence could be asked, of the 
triumph of the great principle of Protestantism in Eng- 
land, than the version thus forced from the reluctant hand 
of the Romish Church. It was not till an overwhelming 
public opinion demanded the free use of the Scriptures as 



408 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the right of every individual, without respect to class or 
condition ; not till the sacred word was, as these transla- 
tors conceded, in every man's hands in England, did she 
step forward, and with this shadow of a Bible seek to tempt 
them from the reality. 

The subsequent history of the Douay Bible is in full 
keeping with its origin. Were even so imperfect and cor- 
rupt a version freely circulated among the Catholic masses 
fcjpeaking the English tongue, there would soon be witnessed 
among them the evidences of a new intellectual and reli- 
gious life. But its office has ever been, and so continues 
in the present day, to stand as a barrier between them and 
the dreaded Protestant versions ; while between them and 
itself is interposed the general influence of the priesthood, 
and the secret inquisition of the confessional. 



CHAPTER XIK 



THE COMMON VERSION. 

The four or five years preceding the death of Elizabeth, 
had witnessed a partial lull in the great contest between 
the Establishment and the Puritans. This was the effect 
of several causes ; none of which, however, contained the 
presage of permanent peace. The Queen, now yielding 
to the infirmities of age, could no longer maintain her pre- 
rogative over Church and State with the spirit and efficiency 
of former days. Archbishop Whitgift also, who had pro- 
claimed *' war to the knife" with Nonconformists, on his 
elevation to the Primatjy in 1583, and whose administra- 
tion made that of Parker seem moderate and humane, was 
beginning to feel the weight of years. Meanwhile, the un- 
wise and illegal severity of their measures had produced 
a corresponding reaction in public sentiment, which now 
affected all classes of society. It was no longer mere pop- 
ular sympathy with the persecuted. The most thoughtful 
and far-sighted statesmen beheld with alarm the encroach- 
ments of a priesthood, who, through their vast, undefined, 

ecclesiastical powers, and their coalition with the Star 

18 



410 THE ENGLISH BIBLE 

Chamber, had almost monopolized the administration of 
justice, and left to British subjects little more of liberty 
than the name. The courts of common law, provoked to 
resistance by long aggressions on their jurisdiction, now 
learned to check the action of the episcopal courts, and of 
the High Commission, by writs of prohibition, which could 
only be set aside by a tedious legal process, sometimes 
protracted through several years. This invasion of their 
prescriptive rights was hotly resented by the bishops ; but 
in spite of their best endeavors, ^^ the evil," says Str3^pe, 
*' increased more and more."* Thus, in various ways, was 
the hierarchy crippled for the time, and disabled from that 
unrestrained use of its weapons to which it had been so 
long accustomed. 

But that which contributed most of all to this state of 
comparative quiet, was the near prospect of a Puritan sov- 
ereign on the throne of England. James VI. of Scot- 
land, Elizabeth's expected heir, had been educated a Pres- 
byterian. He had publicly subscribed with his own hand 
the Solemn League and Covenant,! and on several occa- 
sions had reaffirmed his attachment to its principles. A 
marked instance of the kind had been witnessed in the 
General Assembly at Edinburgh, in 1590 ; J '^ when, stand- 
ing with his bonnet off, and his hands lifted up to heaven, 
* he praised God that he was born in the time of the light 
of the Gospel, and in such a place as to be king of such a 
church, the sincerest [purest] kirk in the world. The 
church of Geneva,' said he, ^ keep Pasche and Yule ; what 
Lave they for them ? They have no institution. As for 
our neighbor kirk of England, their service is an evil-said 

* Lifo of Whitgift, Book IV. Ch. xxvi. f Neal, Part I. Gh. yiii. 

t Neal, Part II. Ch. i. 



THE COMMON VERSION. 411 

Mass in English ; they want nothing of the Mass but the 
liftings. I charge you, my good ministers, doctors, elders, 
nobles, gentlemen, and barons, to stand to your purity, 
and to exhort the people to do the same ; and I, forsooth, 
as long as I brook my life, shall maintain the same.'" 

While therefore the Puritans, secure, as they supposed, 
of a speedy change in the government which would make 
them the administration party, were content silently to 
'^ bide their time;" the bishops, dreading the reckoning 
which was to come, were quite willing to abstain from acts 
which might make a case, now sufficiently bad, quite irre- 
trievable. ''For indeed," says Strype, ''he [the Arch- 
bishop] and some of the bishops, particularly the Bishop 
of London,* feared much that when this king came to 
reign in this realm, he would favor the New Discipline, 
and make alterations in the ecclesiastical government and 
liturgy."! The hopes of the one party and the fears of the 
other, both of which seemed so justly founded, were des- 
tined to a signal disappointment. 

In 1603, the long career of the great Queen was closed 
by death, and the Scotch King succeeded to the English 
throne, under the title of James I. All eyes were now 
turned to the new monarch ; and his first movements were 

* Richard Bancroft, who had been raised, in 1597, by the strenuous ef- 
forts of Whitgift, to the bishopric of London, owed the favor of that prelate 
to his long and active opposition to the Puritans. For many years previous 
he had been the Primate's right hand man, in all measures for the suppres- 
sion of that obnoxious party, and even surpassed him in the violence and 
cruelty of his proceedings. Since his elevation to the see of London, Whit- 
gift' s increasing age had thrown on Bancroft the active duties of the Primacy, 
and placed him foremost in the conflict. He had, therefore, more than any 
other man, reason to dread the expected new order of things. 

t LL^e of Whitgift, p. 560. 



412 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

awaited by both parties with breathless interest. Messen- 
gers were promptly despatched by both into Scotland, to 
offer their congratulations and assurances of loyalty, and 
to bespeak the royal favor to their respective interests. 
His reply to the bishops, that he would uphold the gov- 
ernment of the late Queen as she left it, somewhat revived 
their courage. But he was also gracious to the agents 
of the Puritans. And thus, while he refrained from com- 
mitting himself to any definite policy, each party was 
flattered with the idea of standing highest in his favor. 
Unsuspected by both, James had an object in view, to 
which the settlement of the quarrel between the Prelates 
and the Puritans, in itself considered, was to him a mere 
trifle. Provided only his Prerogative were secured by the 
decision, he cared not which triumphed ; and to form a 
judgment on this point, required time for personal obser- 
vation. During several months succeeding his accession, 
he was engaged in a royal progress through his new do- 
minions; and though apparently absorbed in amusement, he 
diligently used the opportunity for watching the character 
and tendencies of the rival parties. Meanwhile, the war 
of opinion had broken out with renewed violence ; and the 
measures and publications, proceeding from both sides, de- 
veloped still more palpably their characteristic views and 
aims. 

James was at length ready to take a definitive position. 
On the 24th of October, a proclamation, issued under the 
royal seal, appointed a meeting of leading Churchmen and 
Puritans, for discussing the ecclesiastical affairs of the 
kingdom. Thus originated the celebrated Hampton Court 
Conference. 

The terms of the proclamation left no room to doubt 



THE COMMON VERSION. 413 

of his Majesty's decision to support the Established Church ; 
while the insulting arrogance of his tone towards the Pu- 
ritans, his prohibition to them of all freedom of speech or 
of the press, and even of the right to join together in peti- 
tioning their sovereign on points of vital interest, taught 
them what treatment to expect in the appointed interview. 
The arrangements for the meeting corresponded to the 
style of the proclamation. Sixteen dignitaries of The 
Church, of whom nine were bishops, were designated to 
represent the prelatical party ; while only four Puritan 
ministers, and those selected by the King, were allowed to 
appear on the other side. 

On Saturday, the 14th of January, 1604, the Conference 
held its first session. To this the Puritan ministers were 
not admitted. In Dr. Barlow's account of the Conference, 
drawn up by order of the Archbishop,* the occurrences of 

* " The sum and substance of the Conference which it pleased his ex- 
cellent Majesty to have with the Lords Bishops and other of his clergy 
(whereat the most of the Lords of the Council were present) in his Ma- 
jesty's Privy Chamber at Hampton Court, Jan. 14th, 1603 [4.J Contracted 
by William Barlow, Doctor of Divinity, and Dean of Chester;'' 301 pp. 
small octavo. It is of this document that Strype says in his Life of AVhit- 
gift, p. 571 : " But that the very truth might appear [of the occurrences in 
the Hampton Court Conference], there was an authentic relation of it, writ- 
ten by one of the Divines there present, viz.. Barlow. Dean of Chester ; and 
that by the Archbishop's own order, imposing this work upon him. Which then 
we may conclude to have been carefully revised by himself. And that it 
might be more exact and complete, it was compared and enlarged by the 
writer (before it was published), with the Xotes and copies of the Bishop of 
London, the Deans of Christ's Church, Winchester and "Windsor, and the 
Arclicleacon of Xottingham." 

The quotations from this tract, which has now become rare, have been 
made for the present work from the copy in the Harvard L'niversity Library. 
It has been accused of unfairness in representing the conduct of the Puritan 
divines at the Conference ; its source leaves no room to suspect, that James 
and the prelates are not presented in the most favorable light. 



414 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the first morning are stated as follows. ^^ All the deans 
and doctors attending my Lords the Bishops into the pre- 
sence-chamber, tliere we found sitting upon a form, Dr. 
Reynolds, Dr. Sparkes, Mr. Knewstubbs, and Mr. Chad- 
crton, agents for the Millene Plaintiffs.* The Bishops 
entering the Privy Cliamber, stayed there, till command- 
ment came from his Majesty that none of any sort should 
be present, but only the Lords of the Privy Council, and 
the Bishops with five Deans, [naming them,] who being 
called in, the door was close shut by my Lord Chamber- 
lain." 

The indignity thus put upon the reform party was fol- 
lowed by a meeting of the King and the Bishops, in which 
they came to a perfect mutual understanding. It was 
opened by the King in an oration an hour long, whose 
key note was the sentiment expressed in the first sentence, 
that *^ Religion is the soul of a kingdom, and Unity the life 
of religion." It contained very severe reflections on that 
portion of the clergy who, by opposing conformity to the 
established doctrine and discipline, had bred dissensions 
now amounting almost to a schism, — " a point," says the 
royal orator^ *' most perilous to the common weal as to the 
Church." They then proceeded to a consideration .of the 
complaints against the Book of Common Prayer, as well 
as of alleged abuses in the administration of the service 
and discipline of tlie Church; which ended in an order 
from the King, for a few verbal alterations in the titles of 
certain portions of the Prayer Book, " not," as he re- 
marked, ^' in the body of the sense, and by way rather of 

* In nUusion to the so-caHed Millenary Petition, signed by 750 Puritan 
ministers, and presented to the King soon td'ter his arrival in Englund, 
praying for a reformation in the Church. 



THE COMMON VERSION. 415 

some explanation, than of any alteration at all."^ His 
Majesty did not allow the session to close without assuring 
the Bishops that "howsoever he lived among Puritans, and 
was kept for the most part as a ward under them ; yet, 
since he was of the age of his son, ten years old, he ever 
disliked their opinions. As the Saviour oj* the world said, 
^ Though he lived among them, he was n.«:, . f them.' -'f 

On Monday, the second day of the Conference, the Pu- 
ritan ministers were called into the Council Chamber, (the 
Bishops of London and Winchester being there already,) 
and after them all the Deans and Doctors present which 
had been summoned. On this occasion, in the words of 
the Bishop of Durham, J his highness used more short and 
round speech." For five hours these learned and virtuous 
men, (one of them. Dr. Beynolds, a distinguished Professor 
in the University of Oxford), were obliged to submit to a 
brow-beating from the king and prelates, which reflects deep 
disgrace on the cause that could need or use such weapons. 

Mr. Knewstubbs having taken exceptions to the cross in 
baptism, on account of the offence to weak brethren, the 
King replied :§ " How long will such brethren be v/eak ? 
Are not forty five years sufficient for them to grow strong 
in ? Besides, who pretends this weakness ? We require 
not subscription of laics and idiots, but of preachers and 
ministers, who are not still, I trow, to be fed with milk, 
being enabled to feed others. Some of them are strong 

* Strype's Life of "Whitglft, Appendix No. XLV : Letter from the JBi^hop 
of Durham to the Archbishop of York, giving an account of the Hampton 
Court Conference. 

t Barlow's account of the first session of the Conference, closing para- 
graph. 

I Letter, &c., as just quoted. 

§ FuUer, Ch. Hist. Vol. Ill, p. 186. 



416 THE ENGLISH BIBLB, 

enough, if not headstrong ; conceiTing themselves able to 
teach who last spake for them, and all the bishops in the 
land." 

To the farther enquiry of Mr. Knewstubbs, whether the 
church were competent thus to add to the ordinance of 
Christ, and how far her authority is binding in such cases, his 
Majesty answered with great warmth : " I will not argue 
that point with you, but answer as kings in parliament, Le 
roi 5' avisera. This is like Mr. John Black, a beardless 
boy, who told me the last Conference in Scotland, that he 
would hold conformity with his Majesty in matters of doc- 
trine, but every man for ceremonies was to be left to his 
own liberty. But I will have none of that. I will have 
one doctrine and one discipline, one religion in substance 
and in ceremony. And^ therefore, 1 charge you never speak 
more to that point, — how much you are bound to obey, — 
when the church hath ordained it."* 

Dr. Reynolds objected to the apocryphal books^ instanc- 
ing, among other errors, Ecclesiasticus 48 : 10. On this 
his Majesty said,t *' with a pleasant apostrophe to the 
Lords : What, trow ye, makes these men so angry with 
Ecclesiasticus ? By my soul I think he was a Bishop, or 
else they would never use him so 1" 

Upon a proposition by Dr. Reynolds, that the inferior 
country clergy might be permitted to meet together at 
stated times for the discussion of theological subjects, | 

* Barlow, p. 70. f Ibid, p. 62. 
X Similar exercises under the name of prophesyings had been established 
by Grindal when Bishop of London, with a view to promote among the cler- 
gy of his diocese the spirit of preaching, which had almost died out in the 
church. They were peremptorily suppressed by Elizabeth as savoring too 
much of the New Discipline, and Grindal's revival of them, as Archbishop, 
cost him the forfeiture of the royal favor, suspension fi'om his oflice and 



THE COMMON VERSION. 417 

James broke forth : '^ If you aim at a Scottish Presbytery, 
it agreeth as well with monarchy as God and the devil. 
Then Jack, and Tom, and Will, and Dick, shall meet and 
censure me and my council. Therefore, I say again, Le 
roi 5' avisera. Sta}^^ I pray you, one seven years, and 
then if you find me grow pursy and fat, I may per- 
chance hearken unto you; for that government will keep 
me in breath and give me work enough." He then put 
the question to Dr. Reynolds, whether he knew of any 
^^ who liked the present governrnent ecclesiastical and dis- 
liked his supremacy ? On his answering that he knew of 
none such, the King proceeded to relate his own and his 
mother's experience with the Scotch Reformers, who cried 
up the supremacy of the monarch till the Popish bishops 
were put down, and then, '' being illuminated with more 
light," as they professed, took in hand the supremacy also.* 
Then touching his hat to the bishops, he added if "My 
Lords the Bishops, I may thank you that these men do 
thus plead for my supremacy. They think they cannot 
make their party good against you but by appealing unto 
it, as if you or some that adhere unto you, were not well 
afi*ected towards it. But if once you were out and they in 
place, I know what would become of my supremacy. No 
Bishop, no King, as I before said. Neither do I thus 
speak at random, without ground ; for I have observed 
since my coming into England, that some preachers before 

banishment from Courtj which harsh treatment broke the old man's heart. 
Freedom of thought was discouraged, no less among the inferior clergy than 
among the laity.— See Strype's Life of Archb. Grindal, Append. No. X. 
" Ttie Queen to the Bishops throughout England for the suppression of 
the exercise called Prophesying^ 6fC." 

* Fuller, Vol. Ill, p. 188. f Barlow, p. 82. * 

18* 



418 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

me can be content to pray for James King of England, 
Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith; but 
as for Supreme Governor in all cases and overall persons, 
(as well ecclesiastical as civil,) they pass that over with si- 
lence ; and what cut they have been of I after learned." 
Then having asked if they had anything more to say, and 
being answered in the negative, the King rose from his chair, 
saying as he passed to his inner chamber :* '' If this be all 
they have to say, I shall make them conform themselves, 
or I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse." 

On the third and last day of the conference, Wednes- 
day, Jan. 18, the Archbishop and other church dignitaries 
were present, together with many knights, civilians and 
doctors of the law. But the Puritan ministers were not 
admitted to any share in the discussion, being merely called 
in at the close of the meeting, to hear what had been de- 
cided. At this session the abuses of the High Commission 
were the chief subject of consideration. One of the Lords 
present affirmed, that the proceedings in that court were 
like the Spanish Inquisition ; where men are urged to 
subscribe more than the law requireth ; and by the oath 
ex officio J forced to accuse themselves, being examined upon 
twenty or twenty-four articles on a sudden without delib- 
eration, and for the most part against themselves." But 
the King defended the practice in a long speech, so entirely 
satisfactory to the prelates that the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, in a rapture of admiration exclaimed : '' Undoubted- 
ly your Majesty speaks by the special assistance of God's 
Spirit !" To this Bancroft, the Bishop of London added, 
kneeling : " I protest, my heart melteth with joy, that Al- 

* Barlow, p. 83. 



THE COMMON VERSION. 419 

mighty God, of his singukr mercy, hath given us such a 
King as, since Christ's time, the like has not been !"* 

This question and others proposed to the Conference 
having been settled, the four Puritan preachers were 
called in to hear the trifling alterations proposed to be 
made in the Liturgy. They ventured to beg for some lit- 
tle lenity -and forbearance towards certain godly ministers 
in Lancashire, whose conscience did not allow them to con- 
form in all particulars to the church. To this application 
the King at first answered that it was not his intention, 
and he presumed it was not the bishops', ^^ presently and 
out of hand, to enforce these things without fatherly admo- 
nitions, conferences, and persuasions;" that he wished 
there might be enquiry made whether these ministers had 
converted any from popery, and were, withal, of blameless 
characters ; and if so, that the Lord Archbishop would 
write '' letters directing some favor to be shown them." 
But Bancroft promptly interposed with the suggestion, 
that if such letters were granted, copies of them would ily 
all over England ; and then all non-conformists would beg for 
the same indulgence, and so no fruit would follow from the 
Conference, but things be worse than before. He desired, 
therefore, that a time might be limited within which they 
should be required to conform. To this his Majesty as- 
sented, and suggested that each bishop should see that it was 
done within his own diocese. At this point Mr. Knew- 
stubbs, falling on his knees, prayed for the like forbearance 
to some honest ministers in Suffolk. But the Kino; had 
now got his cue, and interrupting the Archbishop who was 
about to speak, he proceeded : *' Let me alone to answer 
him. Sir, you show yourself an uncharitable man. We 
* Fuller, Ch. Hist., Vol. Ill, p. 190. 



420 THE ENGLISH BIBLE, 

have here taken pains, and in the end, have concluded on 
unity and uniformity ; and you, forsooth, must prefer the 
credit of a few private men before the peace of the church. 
This is just the Scotch argument when anything was con- 
cluded which disliked some humors. Let them conform 
themselves shortly, or they shall hear of it."* 

After a few more words the King, rising, dismissed the 
Conference. As he was leaving the Council Chamber the 
Bishop of London followed him with the benediction : 
" God's goodness be blessed for your Majesty, and give 
health and prosperity to your Highness, your gracious 
Queen, the young Prince, and all the royal issue !" 

Thus closed the Conference of Hampton Court. On the 
day following, the royal Moderator thus described it in a 
letter to a confidential friend in Scotland, whom he ad- 
dresses as '' My honest Blake !"* 

"We have kept such a revel with the Puritans here these two days as 
was never heard the like ; where I have peppered them as soundly as ye 
have done the papists there. It were no reason that those that will refuse 
the airy sign of the cross after baptism, should have their purses stuffed with 
any more solid and substantial crosses.|: They fled me so from argument to 
argument, without ever answering me directly, ut est eorum moris, as I 
was forced at last to say unto them ; That if any of them had been in a col- 
lege disputing with their scholars, if any of their disciples had answered 
them in that sort, they would have fetched him up, in place of a reply ; and 
so should the rod — [here the royal pleasantry descends below " the dignity 
of history."] I have such a book of theirs as may well convert infidels ; but 
it shall never convert me, except by turning me more earnestly against them. 

And thu^, praying j^ou to commend me to the honest Chamberlain, I bid 
you heartily Farewell. James R." 

* Fuller, Vol. Ill, p. 192. 

■f" The whole letter, a curious if not very dignified specimen of royal liter- 
ature, is contained in Strype's Life of Archbishop Whitgift, Appendix, No. 
XLVI. 

j: Coins stamped with the sign of the cross. 



THE COMMON VERSION. 421 

There can now be no room for doubt respecting the prime 
object and the animus of this memorable convention. The 
establishment of Episcopacy as the form of church govern- 
ment most favorable to royal supremacy, and the extinc- 
tion of Puritanism, as tending in the opposite direction, 
are written legibly in all its proceedings. 

How then is the fact to be explained, that in regard to 
one point of vital interest, the wishes of the Puritan min- 
isters received the prompt concurrence of the King, and 
that manifestly against the wishes of their opponents ; and 
that the realization of the measure thus inauspiciously com- 
mended to his notice, became one of the chief objects of 
his royal care for several succeeding years, and the leading 
historical event of his reign ? This was the subject brought 
forward by Dr. Pteynolds, at the second session of the con- 
ference, of a NEW TRANSLATION OF THE ScRIPTURES. A 

careful attention to the circumstances of the case easily 
solves the problem. 

This scene in the conference is thus described by Bar- 
low :^ 

•' After that, he (Dr. Reynolds,) moved his Majesty that there might he 
a new translation of the Bible ; because those which were allowed in the 
reigns of Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth were corrupt and not 
answerable to the original. To which motion there was at the present no 
gainsaying, the objections'!' being trivial and old, and already in print, often 
answered ; only my Lord of London well added, that if every man's hu- 
mor should be followed, there would be no end of translating. "Whereupon 
his Highness wished that some special pains should be taken in that behalf, 

* Sum and Substance of the Conference, &c., p. 45. Comp. Fuller, Ch. Hist. 
Vol. Ill, p. 182. 

t N'amely, to these versions, of the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VL 
Dr. R. of course referred to a version for public use in the Churches. The one 
still in use was Cranmer's " authorised version," in the unsatisfactory revision 
of it by the Bishops. 



422 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

for one uniform translation, (professing that he had never yet seen a good 
translation into English, but the worst of all he thought the Genevan to be,) 
and this to be done by the best learned in both Universities ; after them to 
be reviewed by the Bishops and the chief learned of the Church ; from 
them to be presented to the Privy Council ; and lastly to be ratified 
by his royal authority ; and so this whole Church to be bound unto it 
and no other. Marry, withal, he gave this caveat (upon a word cast out by 
my Lord of London), that no marginal notes should be added, having found 
in those annexed to the Genevan translation (which he saw in a Bible given 
him by an English lady,) some notes very partial, untrue, seditious, and sa- 
voring too much of dangerous and traitorous conceits. As when from Exo- 
dus 1 : 19, disobedience to Kings is allowed in a marginal note ; and 2 Chron. 
XV; 16, King Asa is taxed in the note for only deposing his mother and not 
killing her. And so concluded this point, as all the rest, with a grave and 
judicious advice, — First, that errors in matters of faith might be rectified 
and amended ; Secondly, that matters indifferent might rather be inter- 
preted and a gloss added , alledging from Bartolus de regno that, as better 
a King with some weakness than still a change, so rather a Church with some 
faults than an innovation." 

It cannot escape the reader of this account, that Ban- 
croft's insolent remark, thrust in with characteristic for- 
wardness before the King had spoken, was a decided mis- 
take. His Majesty's answer is based on a view quite 
different from that which had governed the policy of the 
Primate and his Lieutenant, the last twenty years ; while 
the sketch it contains of a specific plan for the execution 
of the proposed work, looks much like the result of delib- 
erate consideration and a previously settled purpose. The 
probability, that such may have been the case, will appear 
from a few facts. 

The subject of an improved translation of the Scriptures 
was by no means a novel one. For many years before the 
death of Elizabeth, the question was frequently agitated, 
of a thorough revision of the Church Bible, which should 
bring it up in critical accuracy to tlie demands of the age. 
Hugh Broughton, the profoundest Biblical scholar of the 



THE COMMON VERSION. 423 

time in England, and probably excelled by none elsewhere, 
wished to devote bis own attoinments to the task, and urged 
its claims with more enthusiasm than prudence, on the 
great men both in Church and State. In 1595, he pub- 
lished a translation of a part of the Old Testament, with 
short explanatory notes, as a specimen of his proposed 
work, hoping thereby to secure the countenance and pecu- 
niary aid necessary to its completion. Of this he sent a 
copy to Lord Burleigh, with a letter stating his plan and 
soliciting his lordship to be '•'• chiefest in contribution to- 
wards the charge, which would be exceeding great." In 
another letter to the same distinguished person, he men- 
tions that '^ sundry Lords, and among, them some bishops, 
and others inferior of all sorts, had expressed the wish that 
his long studies in Hebrew and Greek might be bestowed 
on the improvement of the Bible's Translation. That they 
judged rightly, that amended it must be. In what points, 
he thought it not good largely to tell in words till it were 
performed in work ; lest the Bible then in use be brought 
into unnecessary disgrace ; but that all persons of knowl- 
edge and conscience would grant that bettered much it 
miojht be." He reminds the Lord Treasurer that this 
subject had been presented to his notice two years before ; 
and that ^^her Majesty at that time sent word and message 
to Sir Francis Walsingham that it must be considered; 
which his Honor had intended to do, but was hindered by 
affairs of State." He then proposes, that six of the most 
learned linguists, to be sustained by voluntary contribu- 
tions, be employed in executing the work; whose object 
shall be, on the one hand, not to alter where the transla- 
tion is already well done; and on the other, to spare 
nothing that carried open untruth against history and re- 



424 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

ligion, or darkness, disannulling the writers. In which 
kind, Job and the Prophets might be brought to speak far 
better unto us." 

But air his hopes were frustrated by the opposition of 
Whitgift and Bancroft, who disliked the man, and dreaded 
the inexorable honesty of his principles of translation. 
Their avowed objections to his plan were indeed of the 
most pious character, and seemed dictated by a holy zeal 
for the interests of truth. '^ They feared," says Strype, 
" that hereby an occasion might be given to the enemies 
of our religion, the Papists, of discrediting our common 
English Bible and the doctrines that were founded on it, 
and weaken the reputation of that former translation then 
used in the churches." Broughton, who despised their 
hollow cant, and was as hot-tempered as he was learned, 
denounced their cherished version as a disgrace to English 
scholarship ; and charged their pretended reverence for it, 
on their unwillingness *'to lose their traps and pitfalls." 
This discouragement did not, however, cause him to remit 
his efforts for this great object ; for in a letter to Lord 
Burleigh in 1596, he speaks of *' having written to all the 
realm for the true Bible;" and he prays his Lordship to 
advise the Archbishop, whose opposition seems to have 
been generally recognized as the sole hindrance to the 
work, " to take heed lest he bring the realm to eternal 
shame, in a matter the highest for religion."* 

We see, from the foregoing, that the subject of a new 
version of the Scriptures was one familiar to English 
scholars, many years before it was proposed by Dr. Key- 

* For the facts in this account of B rough ton's efforts for a new translation, 
see Strype's Life of Whitgift, pp. 382, 432, 485, 489, 585, and elsewhere. 
Broughton was one of those unfortunate geniuses, who, with fine qualities 



THE COMMON VERSION. 425 

nolds in the Hampton Court Conference ; and that not a 
few churchmen as well as others, acknowledged the ahso- 
lute necessity of the work. How indeed could it be other- 
wise, with the fact staring them in the face, that the com- 
mon people were daily reading in their homes a version 
every way superior to that which was read to them ' by 
authority,' on Sundays in the Churches ? The comparison 
thus constantly forced on the popular mind, and converted 
by the warfare between Prelacy and Puritanism into a 
matter of lively practical interest, could not have failed to 
become a fruitful source of discussion among all classes 
greatly to the disadvantage of the State Church. 

Now James, with all his mean and ridiculous traits of 
character, possessed an extraordinary amount of shrewdness 
in regard to every thing which concerned his regal in- 
terests ; a faculty which he dignified with the name of 
Kingcraft, and exulted in as his peculiar gift and glory. 
With his eye fixed on the one object of confirming and ex- 
tending the royal supremacy, he had in the course of his 
long reign, attained no little expertness in detecting the 
bearings of whatever was passing in bis dominions, on this 
central point of interest. We have already observed, in 
his remarks on the prayers of the Puritan clergy, the keen- 

and high aims in life, seem born to mar their own fortunes and ruin every 
cause they seek to promote, through inability to govern their tempers 
and tongues. His resentment, for affronts and injuries, was invariably ex- 
pressed in a way to help his enemy and hurt himself. Whatever might 
be the consequence, he could never deny himself the pleasure of using his 
sting ; and every real or fancied wrong was proclaimed to the public with a 
heat and violence, which gave his persecutors the advantage of seeming to be 
the injured party. His life was a series of cruel disappointments ; and in 
most of them, he had himself furnished his more crafty foes with the weapons 
by which they foiled him. So necessary in this world are prudence and 
temper, as well as merit and honesty ! 



426 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

ness of his scent when on the track of popular tendencies. 
Can we doubt then that a subject so important in its rela- 
tions, and so commonly agitated, as a new translation of 
the Bible, had been already subjected in the royal mind to 
the touchstone of Prerogative ? As little does his speech 
in the Conference allow us to doubt, that his sagacity had 
discerned what Whitgift and Bancroft had failed to see : 
namely, that the demand of the age must be directed, not 
resisted ; converted if possible into an instrument of abso- 
lutism, not suffered to become an instrument for subvert- 
ing it. Sent out with a prestige of scholarship, which 
should silence the reproachful clamors of the Puritans and 
eclipse their favorite Presbyterian version, yet charged 
with conservative influences, and linked indissolubly with 
the Church and the Throne, the new version promised to 
become the chief agent in maintaining the established or- 
der. And hence it was, that though this measure was sug- 
gested by the obnoxious party he was resolved to crush, and 
was evidently relied on by the Nonconformist leaders for 
the promotion of the New Discipline,* it was quietly ap- 
propriated by James and used for his own purposes. 

* Their plan was both sagacious and liberal. While desiring to deprive 
Prelacy of the advantnges which it derived from the Bishops' Bible, they 
did not ask that it might be superseded by the Genevan, though confessedly 
superior ; but, on the ground of its acknowledged corruptions and imperfec- 
tions, prayed for a new translation, firmly believing that if executed on the 
principles of true criticism, it could not fail to sustain what they held as 
truth. 



CHAPTER XXIL 



THE COMMON VERSION-CONTINUED. 

How strong a hold the project of a new version had 
taken of the mind of James, and how well he had con- 
sidered the means for making it answerable to his ends, 
appears from the measures which he immediately adopted 
for carrying it into execution. Taking the matter into 
his own hands, he set on foot the necessary preliminaries 
without delay, and on a scale surpassing all that had been 
witnessed in England in connection with Bible translation. 
Bancroft, now fully won over to the King's policy, and 
appointed general Overseer and final Reviser of the v/ork, 
pushed it forward with characteristic vigor and efficiency. 
Before the end of July, fifty-four scholars had been 
selected as translators, and arranged into six companies, 
two of which were to meet at Westminster, and two at 
each of the universities. The heads of the universities 
were directed, moreover, to add to the number such others 
as they might deem qualified ; and the bishops were ex- 
horted to spare no pains for securing the suggestions and 
criticisms of the best scholars in their respective dioceses ; 
*' that so," in his Majesty's words, "our said intended 
translation may have the help and furtherance of all our 
principal learned men within this, our kingdom." 



428 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

The maintenance and remuneration of the translators 
was the King's next care. The following letter, written 
by him to the Bishop of London, exhibits his plan for this 
object.* 

" Eight trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. Whereas, we have 
appointed certain learned men, to the number of fifty -four, for the translating 
of the Bible, and that in this number divers of them have either no ecclesi- 
astical preferment at all, or else so very small as the same is far unmeet for 
men of their deserts ; and yet we of ourself, in any convenient time cannot 
well remedy it. Therefore we do heartily require you that presently you 
write, in our name, as well to the Archbishop of York as to the rest of the 
Bishops of the province of Canterbury, j" signifying unto them that we do 
will, and straitly charge every one of them, as also the other Bishops of the 
province of York, as they tender our good favor toward them, that (all ex- 
cuses set apart) when a prebend or parsonage being rated in our book of 
taxations, the prebend at twenty pound at the least,f and the parsonage to the 
like sum and upwards, shall next upon any occasion happen to be void, and 
to be either of their patronage and gift, or the like parsonage so void to be 
of the patronage and gift of any person whatsoever ; they do make stay 
thereof, and admit none unto it until, certifying us of the avoidance of it, 
and of the name of the patron, (if it be not of their own gift,) we may com- 
mend for the same some such of the learned men as we shall think fit to be 
preferred unto it ; not doubting of the Bishops' readiness to satisfy us herein, 
or that any of the laity, when we shall in time move them to so good and 

* From Regist. III. Whitgift. Copied from Wilkins' Concilia magnae 
Britan. et Ilibern. Vol. iv.p. 407 (Harvard Univ. library) ; also in Strype's 
Life of Whitgift, p. 590. 

•f Archbishop Whitgift had died in the preceding February, only a few 
weeks after the Hampton Court Conference. His apprehension, that the 
Puritan influence in the coming Parliament might undo what had been so 
satisfactorily settled in the Conference, is supposed to have hastened his death. 
So well aware was he, that the measures there carried through, with so high 
a hand, were in opposition to the wishes of the most substantial part of the 
nation J 

I This, it will be recollected, would be equal to many times the same sum 
at the present time. Thus Fuller (Vol. iii. p. 220) mentions, as an instance 
of Archbishop Ilutton s munificence, that "he founded a hospital in the 
north, and endowed it with a yearly revenue of thirty-five pounds." 



THE COMMON VERSION CONTINUED. 429 

religious an act, will be unwilling to give us the like due contentment and 
satisfaction : We Ourselves having taken the same order for such prebends 
and benefices as shall be void in our gift. 

*' "What We write to you of others, you must apply it to yourself; as also 
not to forget to move the said Archbishop, and all Bishops, with their Deans 
and Chapters, as touching the other point to be imparted otherwise by you 
unto them." [Then follows the direction referred to above for securing the 
voluntary criticisms of the learned clergy of each diocese.] " Given under 
Our Signet at Our Palace of Westminster, the 22d of July, in the second 
year of our reign of England, France and Ireland, and of Scotland, xxxvii." 

This letter the Bishop of London communicated to 
each of his brethren, as directed, accompanied by one 
from himself, dated July 31st, urging upon their attention 
** how careful his Majesty is for the providing of livings 
for those learned men." *^ I doubt not," he adds, " that 
your Lordship will have a due regard of his Majesty's re- 
quest herein, as it is fit and meet ; and that you will take 
such order, both with your chancellor, register, and such 
of your Lordship's of&cers who shall have intelligence of 
the premises, as also with the dean and chapter of your 
cathedral church, whom his Majesty likewise requireth to 
be put in mind of his pleasure herein ; not forgetting the 
latter part of his Majesty's letter, touching the informing 
of yourself of the fittest linguists in your diocese, for to 
perform, and speedily to return, that which his Majesty is 
so careful to have faithfully performed."* 

To this letter was added a postscript explaining " that 
other jpoinV^ in his Majesty's letter, which, being a matter 
of delicacy, seems to have been committed orally to Ban- 
croft, to be by him made known confidentially to the other 
prelates. It was, in substance, this : That the immediate 
support of such of the translators as were without livings, 
required a considerable sum to be raised without delay, 
* Wilkins and Strype, as quoted above. 



430 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

'* which his Majesty, of his most princely disposition, "Waa 
very ready to have borne ; but that some of the Lords (as 
things then went) held it inconvenient."* A contribution for 
this object was therefore requested of the clergy, in his Ma- 
jesty's name ; and as a stimulus to their zeal, the Bishop 
mentioned that he was directed " to acquaint his Majesty 
with every man's liberality towards this godly work.' 

The following letter from Chancellor Cecil, to the Vice- 
chancellor and heads of the University of Cambridge, 
bearing the same date as that of the King to Bancroft, 
suggests still another method of meeting this necessity, in 
order, as it seems, that the work might be taken in hand 
without delay if 

" After my very hearty commendations — Whereas his Majesty hath ap- 
pointed certiiin learned men, in and of your university, to take pains in 
translating some portions of the Scripture, according to an order in that be- 
half set down (the copy whereof remaineth with Mr. Lively, your Hebrew 
lecturer) his pleasure and commandment is, that you should take such 
care of that work, as that if you can remember any fit men to join with the 
rest therein, you should in his name assign them thereunto; and that such 
as are to be called out of the country, may be entertained in such colleges 
as they shall make choice of, without any charge unto them either for their 

* The royal finances were in a desperate condition, the officers of the 
household being driven to their wit's end to obtain either money or credit 
for his Majesty's weekly expenses. His persevering energy in pushing for- 
ward the new version under these embarrassments, is all the more worthy of 
notice. In 1607, the King thus speaks, in a letter to the Lords, respecting 
the better improving his revenue — " My Lords : The only disease and con- 
sumption which I can ever apprehend as likeliest to endanger me, is this 
eating canker of want ; which being removed, I could think myself as happy 
in all other respects, as any other king or monarch that ever was since the 
birth of Christ. In this disease, I am the patient ; and ye have promised 
to be the physicians, to use the best care upon me that your wit, faithful- 
ness, and diligence can reach unto." — Strype's Annals, Appendix, No. 297. 

t Le^vis' Hist of Trans, of the Bible, p. 313 (from the original in the Ar- 
chives of Cambridge Univ.) 



THE COMMON VERSION CONTINUED. 431 

entrance, their chamber, or their commons, except it happen that any do 
make cboice to remam m any ot tne poorer college.? that are not well able 
to bear that charge ; and there such order will be taken by the Lord Bishop 
of London as that the same shall be defrayed. His Majesty expecteth that 
you should further the business as much as you can, as well by kind usage 
of the parties that take pains therein, as by any other means that you can 
best devise ; taking such order that they may be freed in the meanwhile 
from all lectures and exercises to be supplied for them by your grave direc- 
tions ; and assuring them that he will hereafter have such princely care, as 
well by himself as by his Bishops at his commandment, for the preferring 
of every one of them, as their diligence and due respect to his Majesty's de- 
sire in this so worthy an employment, shall (he doubteth not) very well 
deserve." 

Under the same date as his letter to the bishops, 
Bancroft wrote to the Cambridge translators, informing 
them :* 

" That his Majesty being made acquainted with the choice of all them to 
be employed in the translating of the Bible in such sort as Mr. Lively could 
inform them, did greatly approve of the said choice. And forasmuch as his 
Highness was very desirous, that the same so religious a work should admit no 
delay, he had commanded him to signify unto them, in his name, that his 
pleasure was, they should, with all possible speed, meet together in their 
university and begin the same ; that his Majesty's care for their better 
continuance together, they might perceive, by their Bight Honorable Chan- 
cellor's letter to the Vice-chancellor and heads, but more especially by the 
copy of a letter written to himself for order to be taken with all the Bishops 
of this realm in their behalf, which copy he had herewith sent them ; that 
he had desired Mr. Vice-chancellor to send to such of them as were not now 
present in Cambridge, to will them in his Majesty's name, that, all other oc- 
casions and business set aside, they made their present repair unto them 
that were at Cambridge. Upon whose coming, and after they had prepared 
themselves for this business, his Lordship prayed they would write presently 
unto him, that he might inform his Majesty thereof, who could not be satis- 
fied till it was in hand. Since he was persuaded, his royal mind rejoiced 
more in the good hope which he had for the happy success of that work, than 
of his peace concluded with Spain." 

* Lewis, p. 314. 



432 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

His Lordship's letter to the Vice-Chancellor, referred 
to above, is as follows :* 

"After my very hearty commendations : Being acquainted with a letter 
lately written unto you in his Majesty's name by your right honorable 
Chancellor, and having myself received sundry directions from his Highness 
for the better setting forward of his most royal designment for translating the 
Bible, I do accordingly move you, in his Majesty's name, that ageeably to 
the charge and trust committed unto you, no time may be overslipped by 
you for the better furtherance of this ho]y work. The parties names who 
are appointed to be employed therein Mr. Lively can show you ; of which 
number I desire you by him to take notice, and to write to such of them as 
are abroad, in his Majesty's name, (for so far my commission extendeth,) 
that all excuses sei aside, they do presently come to Cambridge, there to 
address themselves forthwith to this business. I am bold to trouble you 
herewith, because you know better who are absent, where they are, and 
bow to send unto them than I do. And were it only, I suppose, to ease me 
of that pains, being myself not idle in the meantime, I am persuaded I 
might obtain at your hands as great a favor. You will scarcely conceive 
how earnest his Majesty is to have this work begun ; and therefore I doubt 
not you will, for your parts, in anything that is within your compass, as well 
in this moved now unto you, as for their entertainment when they come and 
better encouragement, set forward the same. And so being always ready to 
assist you, if any difl&culties do arise in the progress of this business, I com- 
mit you unto the tuition of Almighty God." 

With this letter was likewise sent a copy of the King's 
Instructions to the Translators} being a complete set 
of Rules devised and ordained by his Majesty, for their 
guidance in the preparation of the work. As a statement 
both of the methods and the principles on which our Com- 
mon Version was executed, they are worthy of the reader's 
most attentive consideration. They were as follows :t 

1. The ordinary Bible read in the Church, commonly called the Bishops' 
Bible, to be followed and as little altered as the original will permit. 

2. The names of the prophets and the holy writers, with the other names 

♦ Lewis, p. 315. t Fuller's Ch. Hist., Book X, Sect. Ill, 2. 



THE COMMON VERSION CONTINUED. 433 

in the text, to be retained as near as may be accordingly as they are vul- 
garly used. 

3. The old ecclesiastical words to be kept, namely, as the word church not 
to be translated coi-'.gregatioii, &c. 

4. "When any word hath divers significations, that to be kept which hath 
been most commonly used by the most eminent Fathers, being agreeable to 
the propriety of the place and the analogy of faith. 

5. The division of the chapters to be altered either not at all, or as little 
as may be, if necessity so require. 

6. Xo marginal notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of 
the Hebrew or Greek words, which cannot, without some circumlocution, so 
briefly and fitly be expressed in the text. 

7. Such quotations of places to be marginally set down as shall ser^^e for 
the fit reference of one Scripture to another. 

8. Every particular man of each company to take the same chapter or 
chapters ; and, having translated or amended them severally by himself 
where he thinks good, all to meet together, confer what they have done, and 
agree for their part what shall stand. 

9. As any one company hath dispatched any one book in this manner, 
they shall send it to the rest to be considered of seriously and judiciously ; 
for his Majesty is very careful in this point, 

10. If any company, upon the review of the book so sent, shall doubt or 
differ upon any places, to send them word thereof^ note the places, and there- 
withal send their reasons ; to which, if they consent not, the difi'erence to 
be compounded at the general meeting, which is to be of the chief persons 
of each company, at the end of the work. 

1 1 . When any place of special obscurity is doubted of, letters to be di- 
rected by authority, to send to any learned in the land for his judgment in 
such a place. 

12. Letters to be sent from every bishop, to the rest of his clergy, ad- 
monishing them of this translation in hand, and to move and charge as many 
as, being skilful in the tongues, have taken pains in that kind, to send his 
particular observations to the company, either at Westminster, Cambridge, 
or Oxford. 

13. The directors in each company to be the Deans of Westminster and 
Chester for that place, and the King's Professors in the Hebrew and Greek 
in each University. 

14. These translations to be used when they agree better with the text 
than the Bishops' Bible ; namely, Tyndale's, Matthews, Coverdale's, Whit- 
church's [Cranmer's], the Genevan. 

19 



434 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Of the fifty-four appointed translators, only forty-seven 
actually engaged in the work. Among these it was ap- 
portioned in the following manner 

Of the three companies to whom was committed the 
Old Testament, the first — ten in number — met at "West- 
minster, under the direction of Dr. Launcelot Andrews, 
Dean of Westminster. To them was assigned the Pentateuch, 
and other historical books, as far as the end of 2d Kings. 

The second — eight in number — with Edward Lively^ 
regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, as President, 
met at that university. They had for their portion from 
the first of Chronicles to the end of Ecclesiastes. 

The third met at Oxford, under Dr. John Harding, 
President of Magdalen College, and Professor of Hebrew. 
They took the remainder of the Old Testament, from 
Isaiah to Malachi. 

Of the two companies on the New Testament, the first — 
consisting of eight translators — met at Oxford, under Dr. 
Thomas Ravis, Dean of Christ's Church. Their portion 
was the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the 
Apocalypse. 

To the second — seven in number — who met at West- 
minster, under Dr. "Wm. Barlow, Dean of Chester, were 
assigned the Epistles, 

The remaining company, assembled at Cambridge under 
Dr. Dupont, Prebend of Ely, and Master of Jesus' College, 
consisted of seven scholars, devoted exclusively to the 
Apocrypha. 

A disagreement having arisen among the Cambridge 
translators, in regard to the application of the third and 
fourth rules, his Majesty, being informed of the same 
through the Bishop of London, added a new feature to 



THE COMMON VERSION CONTINUED. 435 

the arrangements, viz. : a special Board, consisting of ^'three 
or four of the most ancient and grave divines, to be as- 
signed by the Vice-Chancellor,npon conference with the rest 
of the heads, to be Overseers of the Translation, as well 
Hebrew as Greek, for the better observation of the rules 
appointed by his Highness, and especially concerning the 
third and fourth rules."* 

The exact time when the translation was commenced, 
has not been ascertained. It has been currently supposed 
that the death, in May 1605, of Edward Lively, the most 
distinguished Hebraist connected with the work, delayed 
even its commencement till considerably after that time. 
But it seems to be pretty clearly settled, that the first 
revision was finished sometime in 1607; and from are- 
mark in the Preface, it appears that this had occupied not 
less than three years, which carries the beginning of their 
work back to 1604. 

Their method of proceeding, in accordance with the 
King's directions, was as follows. The members of a com- 
pany all took the same portion, which each first revised by 
himself ; then all met together to make up a copy on which 
they could agree. The part thus completed was then 
submitted to the other companies for their criticisms ; and 

* Lewis, p. 319. — In these rules and regulations, we find a sufiicient expla- 
nation of the exclusion of Hugh Broughton from the list of translators. He 
would never have subjected his scholarship to such restraints, or yielded to 
the arbitrary decisions of men confessedly far inferior to him in learning. 
Strype tells us — Life of Whitgift, p. 589 — that in the selection of translators, 
such were avoided "'as should affect many alterations, and different read- 
ings from the former version, more than needed. Of which sort," he adds, 
" was the great linguist Mr. Broughton, whose mind the Archbishop knew 
full well, having divers years before condemned that translation, charging 
it with a great number of errors undeservedly, and treated very rudely 
those grave and learned bishops that were employed in it, a-s though they 
had translated from the Latin, and wanted sufficient skill." 



436 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

if these were approved by the first revisers, they were 
adopted as permanent; if otherwise, they were reserve^ 
for the judgment of the final revisers. 

The whole version being completed in this manner, three 
copies were made of it, (one at each place,) and delivered 
to a committee of twelve — six of whom were chosen by the 
translators from their own number — two from each com- 
pany — and six, it is supposed, were selected by the King, 
according to his first intention, from his bishops and other 
learned ecclesiastics not previously connected with the 
translation.* 

The work having received this second revision, passed 
into the hands of Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. 
Miles Smith, (soon after made Bishop of Gloucester,)! who 
again revised the whole, and prefixed arguments to the 
several books. By the King's direction, Dr. Smith also 
wrote a Preface for the work, which is chiefly occupied 
with a defence of its design and character against various 
classes of opposers. 

Finally, the Bishop of London received it in charge, and 
bestowed such finishing touches as were yet needed to fit 
it for its destined position. 

It was at length published in 1611, with a dedication 
to the King, in which fiattery was carried to its culminating 
point. The title page proclaimed, that it had been exe- 
cuted " by his Majesty's special commandment;" and that 
it was *' appointed to be read in churches." 

* Introd. to Bagster's English Hexapla, p. 103. 

•f Next to Bancroft, Bilson had made himself most conspicuous among the 
prelates of the Hampton Court Conference, in opposition to the Puritans. 
Dr. Smith's sentiments towards them are suflBciently manifest in the tone of 
his Preface, and in his speedy promotion to the Bench of Biahopa. 



THE COMMON VERSION CONTINUED. 437 

Thus have we traced the origin of our common version, 
and the principles and method observed in its preparation. 
It only remains to make a few remarks in regard to the 
character of the version, which was the product of so 
singular a combination of influences. 

The breadth of the King's plan, as compared with that 
of Archbishop Parker, is worthy of special notice. It was 
the Primate's aim to advance the cause of Episcopacy, by 
excluding all but bishops from a share in preparing the 
Bible to be used in Divine service ; thus placing them be- 
fore the people, as a distinct sacred class, their authorized 
teachers and directors in matters of religion. This had, 
no doubt, some advantages ; but, on the other hand, it di- 
vided them from the sympathy of the great body of Eng- 
lish scholars, exposed their work and their own pretensions 
to unsparing criticism, and gave to the claims of the Gene- 
van version the fairest chance of recognition. Let us now 
look at the plan of James. His work opened a field for 
the scholarship of England. Her chief schools of learning 
were invited to contribute to it their choicest sons. All 
classes of the clergy were represented in it. Even Puritan 
scholarship was welcomed to a distinguished place in the 
noble task. Its importance and dignity were further en- 
hanced by the King's requirement, that all other literary 
employment — even lectures in the university — should be 
relinquished for the time, and that the translators should 
be relieved of all care for their own support ; while the 
royal employer pledged himself to reward their labor by 
honorable and profitable preferment for life. Nor was this 
all. The cooperation of every learned man in the king- 
dom, by suggestions and criticisms for the use of the im- 
mediate translators, was solicited with an urgency which 



438 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

would give compliance the grace of a favor to the King 
himself. Could a method have been more skillfully devised 
for enlistinnr in the new version the universal interest of 

o 

scholars, and for turning all eyes to it as a great national 
work ? But it was also a Protestant work. Papists alone 
had no part in it. And thus it appealed to all good Pro- 
testants, as a recognition of their common faith, and their 
common detestation of the corrupt and bloody church of 
Rome. 

So liberal, so catholic was the enterprise, when viewed 
on one side. Let us now look at it from another point — 
the principles to be observed in its execution. The first, 
third, and fourth of the King's rules for the translators, 
furnish the answer on this point. The ordinary Bible 
read in the church, commonly called the Bishops' Bible, 
is to be followed, and as little altered as the original will 
^permit. The principle adopted in that version in regard 
to ecclesiastical words, as church for congregation^ is to 
DC still binding. Words with divers significations are to 
be translated according to the use of the Fathers, if agree- " 
able to the propriety of the place and the analogy of faith. 
In other words, the appearance of change, which might throw 
discredit on the authority of the church, is to be cautiously 
avoided ; the ecclesiastical terms which subserve the pre- 
sent constitution of the church are to be retained, and not 
translated ; the translation of doubtful words is to be de- 
cided by the doctrines of the church. 

If these rules have any other meaning, it must be shown 
on other testimony than that of the verision itself. That 
they contained the pith and marrow of James' design, is 
seen also in that committee of the '' most ancient and 
grave divines," appointed for the express object of securing 



THE COMMON VERSION CONTINUED. 439 

conformity to the King's wishes in these particulars. It 
is noticeable, moreover, that the prizes held out to the 
translators as a stimulus to their industry and ambition, 
were high positions in the Church ; and of course not to be 
secured without subscription to its doctrines and discipline. 
Thus the accuracy of the version was to be made subordi- 
nate to considerations of expediency ; and the scholarship 
concentrated on it, was but to give new solidity and eclat 
to an ecclesiastical system, which the majority of the Eng- 
lis 1 nation at that very time deemed at variance with the 
word of God.* 

The same object is manifest also in the succeeding 
measures. The next step in the original plan, was to subject 
it to the examination of the bishops ; and this seems to have 
beaH substantially followed, in the third revision by a se- 
select committee consisting of six translators, and the same 
number of church dignitaries not concerned in the transla- 
tion. To this succeeded a fourth, by two high-churchmen ; 
and finally it passed into the hands of Bancroft, now Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury — a man without scholarship, without 
scruples, and with no power above him but the King, whose 

* " The following observation will confirm," says Hallam, '' what may 
startle some readers, that the Puritans, or at least those who rather favored 
them, had a majority among the Protestant gentry in the Queen's [Eliza- 
beth's] days. It is agreed on all hands, and is quite manifest, that they 
predominated in the House of Commons ; but that House was composed, as 
it has ever been, of the principal landed proprietors, and as much repre- 
sented the general wish of the community, when it demanded a farther re- 
form in religious matters, as on any other subject. One would imagine, by 
the manner in which some express themselves, that the discontented were a 
small faction, who, by some unaccour.table means, in despite of the govern- 
ment and the nation, formed a majority of all parliaments under Eliza- 
beth and her two successors." — Constitutional History of England^ ch. iv., 
Note to p. 115 (Am. edition.) 



440 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

objects in this undertaking precisely coincided with hia 
own. But though he gave account to no man of his pro- 
ceedings in this matter, yet the whole body of the transla- 
tors stood before the public as endorsers of all he might 
please to do ; and the Puritans were made to bear involun- 
tary witness to the divine institution of the State church, 
no less than the most aealous of her sons.* 

The excellencies and the defects of the version thus 
produced, are just what we should expect from its history. 
King James^ third and fourth rules, while they decided its 
character in certain important respects, on principles as 
arbitrary and unsound as those adopted by the Rhemish 
translators, affected the expression only in single points. 
Portions of the work reflect the highest credit on the 
scholarship of the time. Bedell and "Reynolds, and some 
others of the revisers, were undoubtedly masters of all that 
was then known of sacred criticism ; and that they be- 
stowed their utmost pains on the work, there can be no 
question. But all the translators were not scholars ; and 
consequently, other portions fall decidedly behind some of 

* What use was made of this power by Bancroft, is unknown. He was 
publicly charged with having altered the version in fourteen places. Dr. 
Smith is said to have admitted, in answer to complaints from previous 
revisers, that " he was so potent, there was no resisting him." 

The reader of this history will find a remarkabl<3 coincidence between the 
rendering of 1 Peter 2 : 13 in King James' Revision, (to the King, as su- 
•preme,) and the language used by him at the Hampton Court Conference 
(p. 417). This passage was rendered in the Bishops' Bible : unto the Kingy 
as having the pre- eminence. Among the other versions to be consulted when 
that of the Bishops' failed, it stood thus : Tyndale, Coverdalo, Cranmer and 
Matthew's: xrnto the King, as unto the chief head; Genevan : unto the 
King as unto the superior. To whom do we owe it, that King James' Re- 
vision was the first among English translations, which recognized in words 
the King^s supremacy ? 



THE COMMON VERSION CONTINUED. 441 

the previous versions. Passages are mistranslated, wliich 
Tvndale and Coverdale and the Genevan — some or all of 
tliem — had translated right. As a whole, moreover, the 
work could not but exhibit the retrogressive tendency of 
that rigid conservatism, which had made adherence to a 
defective version the fundamental rule of the revision, and 
deviation from it the exception, only to be allowed in cases 
of necessity. Under this pressure, much would be left 
untouched which an unshackled translator, aiming only to 
present the most perfect reflection of the divine original, 
would have changed for the better ; and the chauges that 
were ventured on would often be made with a timid hand. 
Its imperfection is, however, to be ascribed in part to the 
King's haste, which did not allow sufficient time for the 
ripening of the work. In the opinion of the learned Gene- 
brard, a scholar as well qualified to judge on such matters 
as any of that age, the labor of thirty men for thirty years 
would not have been too large an estimate for the thorough 
execution of so great a work.* But James, while he 
wanted the best of versions, wanted it for a specific pur- 
pose ; and that purpose could not be answered even by an 
immaculate version thirty years ahead. His anxiety for 
its completion, is made the basis of the following high- 
flown compliment in the dedication of the work : 

" Of the infinite arguments of a right Christian and religious affection in 
your Majesty, none is more forcible to declare it to others than the vehement 
and perpetuated desire of accomplishing and publishing this work, which 
we now present unto your Majesty. For when once your Majesty, out of 
deep judgment, had apprehended how convenient it was, that out of the 
Original Sacred Tongues, together with comparing of the labors, both in our 
own and other foreign languages, of many worthy men who went before us, 
there ahould be one more exact translation of the Holy Scriptures into the 

* He reckoned the necessary cost at 200,000 crowns. 



442 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

English tongue ; your Majesty did never desist to urge and to excite those 
to whom it was commended, that the work might be hastened, and that the 
business might be expedited in so decent a manner as a matter of such im- 
portance might justly require." 

And thus, from these various causes, it came to pass 
that the new version, instead of reflecting, as each succes- 
sive translation should, the increased light of science with 
uniform clearness, gave it back in broken patches, like a 
field on which sun and shade contend for the mastery. 

It has been objected, also, to the method prescribed by 
James, that decision by plurality of voices is not always 
the safest method of reaching philological conclusions. It 
is obvious upon reflection, moreover, that the plan of suc- 
cessive sets of revisers, though at first sight promising 
faultless accuracy, may prove, in practice, quite the reverse. 
For if the work should pass from the better into the 
worse hands, it would be marred rather than mended by 
the additional labor. AVe have no evidence, that among 
the revisers employed by James there were any more faith- 
ful or competent, than those who performed the first revi- 
sion ; and it is at least probable, that had it been given to 
the public as they left it, it would have stood better the 
test of after times. That some of them were much dissat- 
isfied with the arbitrary handling of their labor is beyond 
question. Both the Dedication and the Preface contain 
allusions to the Puritans, hardly to be explained except on 
the supposition of dissatisfaction in this respect among a 
part of the translators. In the former, after expressing 
the sanguine hope, '^ that the Church of England will 
reap good fruit" by means of the new Bible, the writers 
petition that it may receive the royal support, both against 
those enemies of the faith, the Papists, and against the 



THE COMMON VERSION CONTINUED. 443 

slanders of ^'self-conceited brethren, who run their own 
ways, and give liking unto nothing but what is framed bj 
themselves, and hammered on their anvil." In the Pre- 
face they make particular mention, that the}^ have on the 
one hand '^ avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who 
leave the old Ecclesiastical words and betake them to oth- 
ers ; as when they put washing for baptism^ and congre- 
gation for church ; as on the other side they had shunned 
the obscurity of the Papists in their azymes^ tunike^ ra- 
tional^ holocaust^ and a number of such like, whereof their 
late translation is full." At the very outset of the work, 
it will be remembered, disagreements of this kind occa- 
sioned the appointment of an extra Board of Overseers. 
Dr. Gell, who stood in an intimate relation to one of the 
translators, Dr, Abbott, (afterwards so disliked by James 
as the mild and liberal Archbishop of Canterbury,) has said 
of its defects : '' Yet is not all the blame to be laid upon 
the translators ; but part of it is to be shared with them 
also who set them at work, who by reasons of state limited 
them (as some of them have much complained) lest they 
might be thought not to set forth a new translation but 
rather a new Bible."* And he further asserts, that " many 
mistranslated words and phrases by plurality of voices 
were carried into the context, and the better translation 
was cast into the margin." 

The work was not received by the generation for whom 
it was prepared, with that unanimity for which James had 
hoped. The bait of Puritan scholarship did not sufficient- 
ly conceal the real intent and purpose of its royal and pre- 
latical projectors, to ensnare the body of non-conformists. 

* Essay toward the amendaaent of the last Eng. Trans. of the Bible (1659), 
Preface, p. 29. 



444 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

They had already enjoyed too intimate an acquaintance 
with the Church to be taken at her first cast, and still 
clung to their beloved ''version of Geneva" which they 
felt sure was exactly right.* Nor were all her dutiful 
children pleased with the change. Dr. Smith, in his Pre- 
face to the version, thus represents the cavils of these 
ultra-conservatives : 

" Hath the Church been deceived all this while, they asked. Hath 
her sweet bread been mingled with leaven, her silver with dross, her wine 
with water, her milk with lime 7 We hoped that we had been in the right 
way, that we had had the oracles of God delivered xmto us, and that, 
though all the world had cause to be offended, and to complain, yet we had 
none. Hath the nurse holden out the breast, and nothing but wind in it ? 
Hath the bread been delivered by the fathers of the Church, and the same 
proved to be stone 7 "What is it to handle the word of God deceitfully, if 
this be not?" 

To these popular objections were added those of scholars 
like Dr. Gell, who conceived that the translation had been 
biased by sectarian influences. Critics of a far higher 
class, like the learned Selden, while warmly approving it as 
a decided advance on previous popular versions, objected 
both to its style, as rather ^' a translation into English words 
than English phrase," and to the too frequent inaccuracy 
of its renderings. Whitelocke says of him, when sitting 
with the Westminster Assembly of Divines : ^' Sometimes 
when they had cited a text of Scripture to prove their as- 
sertions, Selden would tell them, * perhaps in your liftle 
pocket Bibles with gilt leaves,' (which they would often 
pull out and read,) ' the translation may be thus ; but the 
Greek and Hebrew signify thus and thus;' and so would 
totally silence them." 

Such were the difficulties with which the version had to 
* See p. 367 



THE COMMON VERSION CONTINUED. 445 

contend, during the first half of the seventeenth century. 
It had not yet fairly established itself as the Bible for 
general use, when a measure was set on foot for a new 
Translation of the Scriptures. An order for this purpose 
was introduced into Parliament in 1652, and again in 1656,* 
and was made the subject of long and grave deliberation 
by a special committee of the House of Commons.* Had 
it gone into effect, the merits and the faults of King James' 
Bible would probably have been now among the curiosities of 
literature ; for it was in the hands of scholars, whose names 
still shine with undiminished splendor among the great 
lights of sacred learning. A version executed by men like 
Castell and Cudworth, Clarke and Walton, would have 
embodied a culture more comprehensive, various, and pro- 
found, than was ever before possessed by English scholars, 
or than ever yet has been bestowed on a vernacular trans- 
lation of the Scriptures in any land. But the political 
changes which soon intervened frustrated this great design ; 
and King James' revision, now left without a rival, came 
into universal use. 

Such was the origin and history of our Common Ver- 
sion. The facts thus brought to view, by dissipating the 
mysterious halo which two and a half centuries have gath- 
ered round it, may diminish the blind fondness of our re- 
gard ; but they exhibit also its indisputable claims on our 
intelligent affection and veneration. 

It is to be remembered with gratitude, not to James, but 
to an overruling Providence, that the objects he had in view 

* Journal of the House of Commons, published by order of the House of 
Commons ; and Whitelocke's Memorials of the English Affairs, London, 1732, 
(Harvard University Library). 



446 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

required no perversion or obscuration of the essential doc- 
trines of our faith. The foundation still stood sure ; the 
wells of salvation still gushed full and free, and all who 
would might drink and live. Even James' conservative 
narrowness was made the instrument of securing to the 
version one feature of inestimable value. We owe it to 
his anxiety for the credit of the Bible already sanctioned 
by the Church, that the English Scriptures still speak to 
us of these later days in substantially the same simple, 
noble, glowing phraseology, in which Tyndale so long be- 
fore had clothed the sacred oracles for the English people. 
That King James' revisers could not have changed its 
general manner for the better, is sufficiently evident from 
the specimens of their ability which they have furnished in 
single cases. Whether in this respect it can ever be es- 
sentially improved, may well be qcstioned. It is at least 
certain that the English mind, thus long accustomed to a 
style so in unison with the simple majesty of the inspired 
original, will be slow to accept of any version conceived in 
a totally different spirit. 

Nor must we forget that this version, though the imme- 
diate product of James' selfish ambition, was no less truly 
the oflfspring of English Protestantism. It owed its exist- 
ence, primarily, to that deep-voiced popular demand for 
the word of God, and for that word in its purity, which 
had been so long one of the most striking, as it was the 
noblest exponent of Anglo-Saxon piety. lie seized upon 
this generous public sentiment, and used it for his own 
ends. But none the less was its life from the hearts of tlie 
people ; none the loss docs it bear witness to that law of 
progress, which had already marked the course of English 
history for more than two centuries, with successive ver- 
nacular translations. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



CONCLUSION. 

In the opening chapter of this volume, the Bible is 
claimed to be the true Magna Charta of the people. This 
has fully appeared in the facts of the preceding history. 
What else awakened in the bosoms of the down-trodden 
English masses those aspirations after light, that conscious- 
ness of manhood, that sense of moral obligation, which 
inspired and sustained their long struggle with tyranny ? 
Through all the stages of this eventful story, embracing 
more than two centuries, the direct influence of the Bible 
in raising the common mind, in imparting to it a knowl- 
edge of its rights, and a fitness for enjoying them, is attest- 
ed by facts so numerous and so striking, that the wonder 
is they should ever have been overlooked. We have seen 
it giving birth, in the fourteenth century, to religious en- 
quiry and spiritual freedom, and in connexion with these 
to the spirit of civil liberty. Under Henry YITL, 
under Bloody Mary, what numbers were strengthened by 
it to endure death, and shame worse than death, rather 
than submit to be enslaved in soul ! In the reign of Eliz- 



448 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

abeth, these influences of the Bible developed themselves 
still more, as the use of it was more general and unre- 
strained. Who were then the advocates of a spiritual wor- 
ship, as opposed to that of outward rites and garb and pos- 
ture ; of equality among the ministers of Christ, and of the 
rights of the laity as members with them of the Christian 
body ? Who pleaded for the rights of conscience, for free 
discussion, and an unrestricted press ? None other than 
those who held to the Bible, as supreme and sole author- 
ity in religion. This great principle, the soul of Noncon- 
formity, was declared by xirchbishop Whitgift to be ^^ a 
rotten pillar."* What were the tendencies of the oppo- 
site principle, is shown in his handling of the civil and re- 
ligious liberties of Englishmen. 

Could we trace this great principle still farther down the 
stream of English history, we should find that the forewarn- 
ings of Whitgift and his predecessors had something of pro- 
phetic insight. The revolution of 1642 developed what 

*In his Reply to Cartwright's Admonition to Parliament^ published in 
1570. This work, which first exhibited, in complete form, the Puritan idea 
of the Christian church, made an impression in England, which renders its 
history one of the leading features in the great struggle for religious free- 
dom. The attempts of the Church and the Court to put it down by author- 
ity, and failing in this, to refute it by elaborate replies, only increased its in- 
fluence. A royal proclamation, requiring all copies to be delivered up 
within twenty days, under heavy penalties, did not secure a. single copy in 
the city and diocese of London, though thousands, it was well known, were 
in circulation. But \{s author could not escape so easily. His nonconformity 
had already cost him a professorship at Cambridge, which he had filled with 
distinguished ability ; and his remaining years were spent chiefly in exile 
or in prison. He waa universally allowed to be one of the most eloquent 
and virtuous divines of the age; and Beza said of him, that he "knew 
not a more learned man under the sun." But before the High Commission 
and the Star Chamber, he was denounced as worthy of being banished or 
BODtoQced to the gallies for life. 



CONCLUSION. 449 

they had so much dreaded, its dangerous leaning to *' a 
Popularity."* The inspiration of the Puritan soldier was 
the " Soldier's Bible.''t But the great crisis of 1688, when 
English Nonconformists held the balance of political pow- 
er, revealed in it a still nobler element. Then were seen 
Presbyterians, Independents, Quakers and Baptists, at the 
price of their own immediate freedom, emolument, and 
honor, takyig their stand side by side with their ancient op- 
pressor, in defence of the constitutional liberties of Eng- 
land. 

The natural and complete unfolding of this principle, in 
its relations to the state, was reserved for this western con- 
tinent. The miniature commonwealth which sprung into 
being among the snows of Plymouth, was its own immedi- 
ate offspring ; and its mission was fulfilled, when it had 
taught the empire developed from that feeble germ, that 
religion needs no other aid from the state than the guar- 
dianship of the rights of conscience ; and that the state 
needs no aid from religion, except what it derives from the 
virtues by her implanted in the individual citizen. These 
truths, though not yet fully recognized by our elder kins- 
men, have largely infused their spirit into the old frame- 
work of English society; softening its harsh medieval fea- 
tures with the beautiful light of progress and practical free- 
dom. Alone among the nations stand these sister lands ; 
deriving whatever is noble and beneficent in their institu- 
tions, from the tendencies which the English Bible has im- 
parted to the English mind. 

One feature of English and American Protestantism de- 
serves particular notice, as pointing significantly to this 

* Their common designation of a popular form of government. 

t " T/ie Souldier's Pocket Bible ;" London, 1643. See Appendix, No. III. 



450 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

divine source of our civil liberties ; I mean the weight and 
dignity of the Lay Element in the Christian body. Nei- 
ther the maintenance of vital religion in the heart, nor the 
management of its outward interests, now rests exclusively 
on the official messengers of salvation. In every depart- 
ment of Christian effort, is felt the wholesome action of the 
practical heads and honest hearts of the laity. The Chris- 
tian laymen of the two countries, are the glory of our com- 
mon lineage and our common faith. 

The vernacular Bible then, is the great inheritance of 
the English race. How to preserve it, in undecaying vi- 
tality and undiminished power, is the grand question of 
each successive age. On this grave point, its own history 
furnishes valuable instruction. Through the whole six- 
teenth century, during which the Bible gained its firm hold 
on the popular life of all England, the work of Bible- 
translation, as its determining element, was one of constant 
growth and progress. Each new ray of light that fell on 
the original Scriptures, was turned with generous haste by 
the scholars of that age upon the vernacular Bible. Suc- 
cessive revisions placed the unlearned reader nearer and 
nearer to the inspired sources. It was not then found un- 
safe for the common mind to know, that every translation 
of the Scriptures, being the work of men, is liable to error 
and susceptible of improvement. The idea of an English 
Vulgate, to inspire reverence for revealed truth, and secure 
the unity of the faith, by standing in unchanging opacity 
between the people and the divine source of light, had not 
then been dreamed of. 

But there is one point of view, in which all the English 
versions and revisions, from Tj^ndale's to that of King 
James, stand on a level. All belong to a single epoch of 
gcholarship, progressive, indeed, but in its leading features 



CONCLUSION. 451 

one and the same; and our common version was tlie last great 
effort of the infant period of Biblical science in England. 
"With the second quarter of the seventeenth century there 
dawned a new era of sacred learning. Well was it said by 
royal, lips : " There were giants in those days !*• The con- 
stellation of Christian scholars, which then rose on Eng- 
land, illuminated all Christendom ; and the epoch thus 
commenced reaches down to and embraces our own day. 
The works of Walton, Castell, Lightfoot, Pococke, and 
their illustrious compeers in the seventeenth century, and 
those of Mill, Bentley, and others of the eighteenth, are 
sources from which modern scholarship still draws large 
supplies. All over Europe was witnessed a simultaneous 
advance, both in the materials of Biblical science, and in 
the genius and ardor of the minds devoted to it. From 
the middle of the nineteenth century, we look back on the 
accumulated results of more than two hundred years of the 
most profound and brilliant scholarship the world has 
known ; and not one ray of this has yet been allowed to 
shine through our English Bible ! 

The character of these results is now very generally 
known to English readers. Through popular works on the 
subject, and especially through the free discussion of it in 
the leading Beviews* and other periodicals, facts once con- 
fined to the learned ftw have become the common property 
of this inquisitive age. Biblical Antiquities, Geography, 
Natural History, &c., are throwing new light, it is claimed, 
on a multitude of passages in the original. Still more im- 
portant is the increased knowledge of the sacred tongues. 
We are assured that much of the seeming obscurity of the 
Scriptures belongs, not to the inspired word itself, but to 

* See particularly, Edlnhurgk Revievr, No. CXCI, for July, 1351; and 
North British Review, No. XXXYIII, for August, 1853. 



452 THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

the imperfect expression of it by the translators ; and that, 
in instances without number, the scholar of the present 
day finds clearness, force, and beauty, in the original text, 
where the vernacular Bible is dark and confused, and can 
trace connected trains of thought where that presents it 
broken into incoherent fragments. But none of these state- 
ments have awakened so general and so lively an interest, 
as those which relate to the Sacred Text itself. Here, 
we are told, the learned now stand on an eminence, far 
above those who prepared our common version. While 
the latter were acquainted with the inspired text of the 
New Testament, only through copies made a thousand 
years or more after the Apostolic age, the more favored 
scholars of the later epoch have access to manuscripts, di- 
vided fr(5m it by only three or four centuries. We are also 
told of translations into other ancient languages, made in 
the first centuries after Christ, from manuscripts coeval 
with the inspired text ; of numerous citations from it, in 
writings of the early Christian Fathers ; all adding their 
independent testimony to that of these ancient Exemplars. 
In fine, we are informed, that through the labors of suc- 
cessive generations of gifted and zealous scholars on these 
materials, the learned have now a text which dates within 
the borders of the apostolic age ; and that the variations 
between this Text and the one from which our common 
version was made, are reckoned by thousands. 

Is it possible that a version, which embodies none of 
these results of modern scholarship, can long command the 
public confidence ? Is it not to be feared that the English 
Bible, so long the chief clement of Anglo-Saxon progress, 
may gradually relax its grasp on the popular life ; to be 
honored at length rather as a monument of the past, than 
as the living power which penetrates and controls the age ? 



APPENDIX. 



I. Specimens of the early English Versions. 
II. The Immaculate Conception. 
III. The Soldier's Bible. 



Note, — The Specimens of the early Versions are given Tvithout change, ex- 
cept in the orthography, which is modernized. 



454 



APPENDIX I. 



WICKLIFFE. 
Exodus 20 : 1—17. 
And the Lord spake all these words : 
r am thy Lord God, that led thee out of 
the land of Egypt, from the house of 
Bervage. Thou shalt not h;ive alien 
gods before me. Thou shalt not make 
to thee a graven image, neither any 
likeness of thing which is in heaven 
ohove, and which is in earth be- 
neath, neither of the things, that be in 
waters under earth ; thou shalt not 
herye [honor] tho ; neither thou shalt 
worship ; for I am thy Lord God, a 
Btrong jealous lover ; and I visit the 
wickedness of faders into the third and 
the fourth generation of them that ha- 
ten me, and I do mercy in to a thous- 
and to them tliat loven me and keep 
mine hests. Thou shalt not take in 
vain the name of thy Lord God, for the 
Lord shall not have him guiltless, that 
taketh in vain the name of his Lord 
God. Have thou mind that thou hal- 
low the day of the sabbat ; in six days 
thou shalt work and shalt do all thy 
works ; forsooth in the seventh day is 
the sabbat of thy Lord Gcxi ; thou 
shalt not do any Avork, thou, and thy 
eon, and thy daughter, and thy servant, 
and thine handmaid, thy work beast, 
end the comeling [stranger] that is 
within thy gates ; for in six days God 
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all 



MATTHEWS (TTITDALE) 

Exodus 20 : 1—17. 

And God spake all these words and 
said : I am the Lord thy God, which 
have brought thee out of the land of 
Egypt, and out of the house of bond- 
age. Thou shalt have none oth er Gc da 
in my sight. Thou shalt make thee no 
graven image, neither any similitude 
that is in heaven above, either in the 
earth beneath, or in the water, that is 
beneath the earth. See that thou 
neither bow thyself unto them neither 
serve them: for I the Lord thy God am 
a jealous God, and visit the sin of the 
fathers upon the children unto the third 
and fourth generation of them that 
hate me, and yet show mercy unto 
thousands among them that love me 
and keep my commandments. 

Thou shalt not take the name of the 
Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord 
will not hold him guiltless that taketh 
his name in vain. Remember the Sab- 
bath day that thou sanctify it. Six 
days mayst thou labor and do all that 
thou hast to do : but the seventh day 
is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in 
it thou shalt do no manner work; 
neither thou nor thy son, nor thy 
daughter, neither thy man servant, nor 
thy maid servant, neither thy cattle, 
neither yet the stranger that is within 
thy gates. For in six days the Lord 
made both heaven and earth, and 



GEITEVAN. Exodus 20 : 1-17. 

Then God spake all these words, saying, 

2. I am the Lord thy Go.l, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, 
out of the house of bondvige. 

3. Thou shalt have none other gods before me. 

4. Thou shalt make thee no graven image, neither any similitude [of things] 
thut are in heaven above, neither that are in the earth beneath, nor that are in 
the waters under the earth. 

5. Thou shalt not bow down to them, neither serve them; for I am the Lord 
thy God, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, 
upon the third [generation] and upon the fourth of them that hate me ; 

C. And showing mercy unto thousands to them that love me, imd keep my com- 
mandments. 

7. Thou 8h;dt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain ; for the Lord 
will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 

8. Remember tho Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 

0. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work. 

10. But the seventh day [is] the Sabbatli of tho Lord thy God; [in it] thou 
shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, 
nor thy maid, nor thy beast, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. 

11. For in tix days tho Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and all 



APPENDIX I. 



455 



COVERDALE. 
Exodus 20 : 1—17. 

And the Lord spake all these Trords, 
and said : I am the Lord thy God, 
-which have brought the out of the 
land of Egypt from the house of bond- 
age. 

Thon shalt have none other Gods in 
my sight. ' Thou shalt make thee no 
graven image, nor any similitude, 
neither of it tliat is above in heaven, 
nor of it that is beneath upon earth, 
neither of it that is in the water under 
the earth. "Worship them not, and serve 
them not: for I the Lord thy God am 
a jealous God, visiting the sin of the 
fathers upon the children, unto the 
third and fourth generation of them 
that hate me; and do mercy upon many 
thousands that love me and' keep ray 
commandments. 

Thou shalt not take the name of the 
Lord thy God in vain. For the Lord 
shall not hold him unguilty that taketh 
his name in vain. 

Remember the Sabbath day that 
thou sanctify it. Six days shalt thou 
labor and do all thy work : But upon 
the seventh day is the Sabbath of the 
Lord thy God; thou shalt do no manner 
of work in it, neither thou, nor thy son, 
nor th\' daughter, nor thy servant, nor 
thy maid, nor thy cattle, nor thy stran- 
ger that is within thy gates. For in 
six days the Lord made heaven and 



CRAXMER. 
Exodus 20 : 1—17. 

And God spake all these words and 
said :I am the Lord thy God, which 
have brought thee out of the land of 
Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 
Thou shalt have none other Gods in 
my sight. Thou shalt make thee no 
graven imasre, neither any similitude 
that is in heaven above, either in the 
earth beneath, or in the waters under 
the earth. Thou shalt not worship 
them, neither serve them; for I the 
Lord thy God am a jealous God, and 
visit the sin of the fathers upon the 
children unto the third and fourth gen- 
eration of them that hate me; and show 
mercy unto thousands in them that 
love me and keep my commandments. 

Thou shalt not take the name of the 
Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord 
will not hold him guiltless that taketh 
his name in vain. Remember the Sab- 
bath day that thou sanctify it. Six 
days shalt thou labor and do all that 
thou hast to do; but the seventh day 
is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ; in 
it thou shalt do no manner of work, 
thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, 
thy man servant, and thy maid servant, 
thy cattle, and the stranger that is with- 
in thy gates. For in six days the 
Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, 



BISHOPS. Exodus 20 : 1—17. 

And God spake all these words, and said, 

2. I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egj^t, 
out of the house of bondage. 

3. Thou shalt have none other Gods in my sight. 

4. Thou shalt make thee no graven image, neither the likeness of anj^thing 
that is in heaven above, either in the earth beneath, nor in the waters under 
the earth. 

5. Thon shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them ; for I the Lord thy 
God am a jealous God, and visit the sin of the fathers upon the children, unto the 
third and fourth generation of them that hate me ; 

6. And show mercy unto thousands in them that love me, and keep my com- 
mandments. 

7. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain : for the Lord 
will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain, 

8. Remember the Sabbath day, that thou sanctify it. 

9. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all that thou hast to do. 

10 But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt 
do no manner of work, thou and thy son and thy daughter, thy man servant, 
and thy maid servant, thy cattle, and the stranger that is within thy gates ; 

11. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in 



456 



APPENDIX I. (continued.) 



WICKLIFFE. 

things that ben in tho, and rested in the 
eev^enth day ; herefor the Lord blessed 
the day of the sabbat and hallowed it. 
Honor thy fader and thy moder, that 
thou be lona: living on the lond, which 
the Lord thy God ehall give to thee. 
Thou shalt not slay. Thou shalt do 
no lechery. Thou shalt do no theft. 
Thou shalt not speak f^ilse witnessing 
against thy neigh l')or. Thou shalt not 
covet the house of thy neighbor, neither 
thou ^halt desire his wife, not servant, 
not handmaid^ not ox, not ass, neither 
all things than beu his. 



MATTHEWS (TYNBALE). 

the sea, and all that in them is, and 
rested the seventh daj- : wherefore the 
Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hal- 
lowed it. Honor thy father and thy 
mother, that thy days may be long in 
the land which the Lord thy God giveth 
thee. 

Thou shalt not kill. 

Thou shalt not break wedlock. 

Thou shalt not steal. 

Thou shalt bear no false 'W'itness 
against thy neighbor. 

Thou sha'it not covet thy neighbor's 
house ; neither shalt covet thy neigh- 
bor's wife, his man servant, his maid, 
his ox, his ass, or aught that is his. 



GENEVAN, 

that in them is, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the 
Sabbath day, and hallowed it. 

12. Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be prolonged upon 
the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 

13. Thou shalt not kill. 

14. Thou si 1 alt not commit adultery. 

15. Thou shnlt not steal. 

16. Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor. 

17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, neither ehalt thou covet thy 
neighbor's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid, nor bis ox, nor his ass, neither 
anything that is thy neighbor's. 



APPENDIX I. (continued.) 



457 



COVERDALE. 

earth, and the sea and all that therein 
is, and rested upon the seventh day ; 
therefore the Lord blessed the seventh 
day and hallowed it. 

Honor thy father and thy mother, 
that thou niayest live long in the land, 
■which the Lord thy God shall give 
thee. 

Thou Shalt not kill. 

Thou shalt not break wedlock. 

Thou shalt not steal. 

Thou shalt bear no false witness 
against thy neighbor. 

"Thou shalt not lust after thy neigh- 
bor's house. Thou shalt not lust after 
thy neighbor's wife, nor his servant, 
nor his maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, 
nor all that thy neighbor hath. 



CRANMER. 

and all that in them is, and rested 
the seventh day, wherefore the Lord 
blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed 
it. 

Honor thy father and thy mother, 
that thy d^ys may be long in the 
land which the Lord thy God giveth 
thee. 

Thou shalt not kill. 

Thou shall not break wedlock 

Thou shalt not steal. 

Thou shalt not bear false witness 
against thy neighbor. 

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's 
house : neither shalt thou covet thy 
neighbor's wife, or his man servant, or 
his maid, or his ox, or his ass, or what- 
soever thy neighbor hath. 



BISHOPS. 

them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh 
day, and hallowed it. 

12. Honor thv father and thy mother; that thy days may be long in the land 
•which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 

13. Thou shalt not kill. 

14. Thou shalt not commit adultery, 

15. Thou shalt not steal. 

16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. 

17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, neither shalt thou covet thy 
neighbor's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor 
anything that is thy neighbor's. 



458 



APPENDIX : (caNTINUEI>.) 



WICKLTFFE. 

Luke 7 : S6-50. 
Bat one of the Pharisees prayed Je- 
eas, that he should eat with him. And 
lie entered into the house of the Phari- 
see, and sat at the meat. * And lo ! a 
sinful woman, that was in the city, as 
she knew that Jesus eat at the meat in 
the hou.i^e of the Pharisee, she brouglit 
an alabaster box of ointment ; and she 
btood behind besides his feet, and began 
to moist his feet with tears, and wiped 
with the hairs of her head, and kissed 
liis feet, and anointed with ointment. 
And the Pharisee seeing, that had cle- 
pid [called, bidden] him, said within 
himself, saying, If this were a prophet, 
be should Vito [know] who and what 
manner woman it were that toucheth 
him, for she is a sinful woman. And 
Jesus answered and said to him, Simon, 
I have something to say to thee. And 
he said. Master, say thou. And he an- 
swered ; Two debtors were to one loan- 
er : and one owed live hundred pence, 
and the other fifty ; bu. when they had- 
den not whereof they shoulden geld 
[pay], he forgave to both. Who then 
loveth him more ? Simon answered and 
Baid, I guess, that he to whom lie for- 
gave more. And he answered to him. 
Thou hast deemed rightly. And he 
turne.l to the woman, and said to Si- 
mon Seest thou this woman? I en- 
tered into thine house, thou gave no 
water to my feet ; but this bath moist- 



TTNDALE. 

Luke 7 : 36-50. 

And one of the pharisees de-sired hini 
that he would eat Avith him. And ho 
came into the Pharisee's house and sat 
down to meat. And behold a woman 
in that city which was a sinner, as soon 
as she knew that Jesus sat at meat in 
the Pharisee's house, she brought an 
alabaster box of ointment, and she stood 
at his feet behind him weeping, and be- 
gan to wash his feet with tears, and did 
wipe them with the hairs of her head, 
and kissed his feet, and anointed them 
\\ith ointment. 

When the Pharisee which bade him 
to his house, saw that, he spake within 
himself, saving : If this man were a 
prophet, he would surely have known 
who and what manner woman this is 
which toucheth him, for she is a sin- 
ner. And Jesus answered and said 
unto him : Simon, I have somew^hat to 
say unto thee. And he said : Master, 
say on. There was a certain lender 
which had two debtors ; the one owed 
live hundred pence, and the other fifty. 
When they had nothing to pay, he for- 
gave thein both. Which of them, tell 
me, will love him most? Simon an- 
swered and said : I suppose that he to 
whom he forgave most. And he said 
unto him. Thou hast truly judged. 

And he turned to the woman, and said 
unto Simon : Seest thou this woman ? 
I entered into thy house, and thou 
gavest me no water to my feet ; but 



GENEVAN. Luke 7 : 36-50. 

36. And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And 
he went into the Pharisees house, and sat down at table. 

37. And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew 
that Jesus sat at table in the Pharisees house, she brought a box of ointment : 

38. And she stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet 
■with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and 
anointed them with the ointment 

39. Now when the Pharisee which bade him^ saw it, he spako \\ithin himself 
Baying, If this man were a prophet, he would surely have known who and what 
manner of woman this is whic^i toucheth him, for she is a sinner. 

40. A!id Jesus answered and said unto him : Simon, I have somewhat to say 
•nnto thee. And he said, Master, say on. 

41. There was a certain lender which had two debtors : the one owed fivo 
hundred pence, and the other fifty. 

4'J. Wlien they had nothing to pay, he forgave them both. Which of them 
therefonj, tell [mo] will love him most? 

43. Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. 
And he said unto him : Thou hast truly judged. 

44. Then ho turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou tb\T wo- 
man ? I entered into thine liouse, and thou gavest me no water to my feet : but 



i 



APPENDIX I. (continued.) 



459 



COVERDALE. 
Luke 7 : 36-50. 
And one of the Pharisees desired him 
that he would eat Avith him. And he 
went into the Pharisees house, and sat 
him down at the table. And behold, 
there was in the city a woman which 
was a sinner. When she knew that 
Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisees 
house, she brought a box with oint- 
ment, and stood behind at his feet and 
wept, and began to water his feet with 
tears, and to dry them with the hairs 
of her head, and kissed his feet, and 
anointed them with ointment. 

But when the Pharisee which had 
called him saAv that, he spake within 
himself and said : If this man were a 
prophet, he would know who and what 
manner of woman this is that toucheth 
him, for she is a sinner. And Jesus 
answered and said unto him : Simon, I 
have somewhat to say unto thee. He 
said: Master, say on. A certain lender 
had two debtors, the one owed live hun- 
dred ponce, the other fifty : but when 
they had nothing to pay, he forgave 
them both. Tell me vv^hich of them 
will love him most ? Simon answered 
and said : He, I suirpose, to whom he 
forgave most. Then said he unto him: 
Thou hast judged right. 

And he turned him to the woman, and 
said unto Simon : Seest thou this wo- 
man ? I am come into thine house, 
thou hast given me no water unto my 



CRANMER. 

Luke 7 : 36-50. 

And one of the Pharisees desired him 
that he would eat with him. And he 
went into the Pharisees house and sat 
down to meat. And behold a woman 
in that city (wliich was a sinner) as 
soon as she knew that Jesus sat at meat 
In the Pharisees house, she brought an 
alabaster box of ointment, and stood at 
his feet behind him weeping, and began 
to wash his feet with tears, and did 
wipe thepa with tlie hairs of her head, 
and kissed his feet, and anointed them 
with the ointment. When the Pharisee 
which had bidden him saw, he spake 
within himself, saying : If this man 
were a prophet, he would surely know 
who and what manner ofvroman this 
is that touched him, for she is a sin- 
ner. And Jesus answered and said 
unto him : Simon, I have somewhat to 
say unto thee. And he said, Master, 
say on. There was a certain lender 
which had two debtors, the o .8 owed 
five hundred pence, and the other fifty. 
When they had nothing to pay, he for- 
gave them both. Tell me therefore, 
which of them will love him most? 
Simon answered and said : I suppose 
that he to whom he forgave most. 
And he said unto him : Thou hast 
truly judged. 

And he turned to the woman, and 
said unto Simon : Seest thou this wo- 
man ? I entered into thy house, thou 
gavest me no water for my feet ; but 



BISHOPS. Luke 7: 36-50. 

36. And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And 
lie went into the Pharisees house and sat down to meat. 

37. And behold, a woman in that city, which was a sinner, when she knew 
that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisees house, she brought an alabaster box of 
ointment : 

38. And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet 
with tears, and did wipe them clean with the hairs of her head, and all to 
kissed his feet, and annointcd them with the ointment. 

39. When the Pharisee which had bidden him, saw it, he spake within him- 
self, saying: If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what 
manner of woman is this that toucheth him: for she is a sinner. 

40. And Jesus answering said unto him : Simon, I have somewhat to say un- 
to thee. And and he saith. Master, say on. 

41. There was a certain lender which had two debtors; the one owed five 
hundred pence, and the otlier fifty. 

42. When they had nothing to pay, he forgave them both. Tell me, there- 
fore, which of them will love him most ? 

43. Simon answered and said: I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. 
And he said unto him, Thou hast truly judged. 

44. And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon: Seest thou this 
woman ? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet : but 



460 



APPENDIX I. (continued). 



WICKLIFFE. 

ed my feet with tears, and wiped with 
her hairs. Tliou hast not given to me 
a kiss ; but this, sithen she entered, 
ceased not to kiss my feet. Thou 
anointedst not mine head with oil ; but 
this anointed my feet with ointment. 
For the which thing I say to thee, 
many sins ben forgiven to her, for she 
hath loved much ; and to whom is less 
forgiven, he loveth less. And Jesus 
fiaid to her. Thy sins be forgiven to thee. 
And they that satten together at the 
meat, begun to say within themself, 
Who is this that forgiveth sins ? But 
he said to the woman, Thy faith hath 
made thee safe -, go thou in peace. 



TYNDALE. 

she hath washed my feet with tears* 
and wiped them with the hairs of her 
head. Thou gavest me no kiss : but 
she, since the time I came in, hath not 
ceased to kiss my feet. Mine head ^vitll 
oil thou didst not anoint : and she hath 
anointed my feet with ointment. 
Wherefore I say unto thee ; Manj-^ sins 
are forgiven her, because she loved 
much. To whom less is forgiven, the 
same doth less love. 

And he said unto her. Thy sins are 
forgiven thee. And they that sat at 
meat Avith him, began to say within 
themselves : Who is this which for- 
giveth sins also ? And he said to the 
woman : Thy faith hath saved thee ; GrO 
in peace. 



GENEVAIT. 

she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her 
head. 

45. Thou gavest me no kiss : but she, since the time I came in, hath not ceased 
to kiss my feet. 

46. Inline head with oil thou didst not anoint : but she hath anointed my feet 
with ointment. 

47. Wherefore I say unto thee : Many sins are foraiven her ; for she loved 
much. To whom a little is forgiven, he doth love a little. 

48. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven thee. 

49. And th(-y that sat at table with him, began to say within themselves ; 
Who is this that even forgiveth sins ? 

60. And he said to the woman ; Thy foith hatji saved thee : go in peace. 



APPENDIX I. (continued). 



461 



COVERDALE. 

feet; bnt she hath watered my feet with 
t€ars, and dried them with the hairs of 
her head. Thou hast given me no kiss, 
but she, since the time she came in, 
hath not ceased to kiss my feet. Thou 
hast not anointed my liead A\ith oi], but 
she hath anointed niy head with oint- 
ment. Therefore I say unto thee : 
Man}^ sins are forgiven her, fv)r she hath 
loved mucli. But unto whom less is 
forgiven, the same loveth the less. 

And he said unto her : Thy sins are 
forgiven thee. Then they that sat at 
the table with him, began to say with- 
in themselves : What is he this, that 
forgiveth sins also? But'he said unto 
the" woman : Thy faith hath saved 
thee, Go thy way in peace. 



CRANMER. 

she hath washed my feet with tears, 
and wiped them wirh the hairs of her 
head. Thou gavest me no kiss : but 
she, since the time I came in, hath not 
ceased to kiss my feet. Mine head 
with oil thou didst not anoint : but she 
hath anointed my feet with ointment. 
Wherefore I say unto thee : many sins 
are forgiven her, for she loved much. 
To whom less is forgiven, the same doth 
less love. And he said unto her : thy 
sins are forgiven thee. And they tha't 
sat at meat with him, began to say 
within themselves, Who is this vs'hich 
forgiveth sins also? And he said to 
the" woman : Thy faith hath saved 
thee : Go in peace. 



BISHOPS. , 

she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her 
head. 

45. Thou gavest me no kiss ; hut this woman, since the time I came in, hath 
not ce \^ed to kiss my feet. 

46. Mine head with oil thou didst not anoint; but this woman hath anointed 
my feet with ointment. 

47. Wherefore I say unto thee^ many sins are forgiven her, for she loved 
much; to wliora little is forgiven, the s!WQe loveth little. 

48. And he said unto her, thj'- sins are forgiven thee. 

49. And they that sat at'meat with him, began to say within themselves, who 
is this that forgiveth sins also ? 

50. And he said to the woman : Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace. 



462 



APPENDIX 1. (continued.) 



TYNDALE. 

Matt. 18 : 15. Moreover if thy bro" 
ther trespass against thee, go and tell 
him his fault between him and thee 
alone. If he hear thee, thou hast won 
thy brother ; but if he hear thee not, 
then take with thee one or two, that in 
the mouth of two or three witnesses, all 
sayings may stand. If he hear not 
them, tell it unto the congregation ; if 
he hear not the congregation, lake him 
as an heathen man and as a publican. 

Acts 2 : 47. And the Lord added to 
the congregation daily them that should 
be saved. 

Acts 8:1. At that time was there a 
great persecution against the congre- 
gation which was at Jerusalem. 

Acts 11 : 22. Tidings of this came 
nnto the ears of the congregation which 
was in Jerusalem. 2o. It chanced 
that a whole year they had their con- 
versation with the congregation there. 

Acts 12 : 1. In that time Herod the 
King laid hands on certain of the con- 
gregation to vex them. 5. But prayer 
was made without ceasing of the con- 
gregation unto God for him. 

Acts 13 : 1. There were at Antioch 
in the congregation prophets and doc- 
tors. 

Acts 14 : 23. And when they had 
ordained them seniors* by election in 
every congregation. 

1 Cor. 4 : 17. Even as I teach every 
whei-e, in all congregations. 

Heb. 12 : 22. But ye are come unto 
the mount Sion, and to the city of the 
living God, the celestial Jerusalem, and 
to an innumerable sight of angels, and 
imto the congregation of the first born 
«son3. 

* Afterwards, elders. 



COVERDALE. 

Matt. 18 : 15. If thy brother trespass 
against thee, go and tell him his fault 
between thee and him alone. If he hear 
thee, thou hast Vv'on thy brother. But 
if he hear thee not, then take yet with 
thee one or two, that in the mouih of 
two or three witnesses, every matter 
may be stablished. If he hear not 
them, tell it unto the congregation. If 
he hear not the congregation, hold him 
as an heathen and pubhcan. 

Acts 2 : 47. And the Lord added to 
the congregation daily such as should 
be saved. 

Acts 8:1. At the same time, there 
was a great persecution over the con- 
gregation at Jerusalem. 

Acts 11 : 22. This tidings of them 
came to the ears of the congregation 
at Jerusalem. 26. It chanced that 
a w^hole year they were there conver- 
sant together in the congregation. 

Acts 12 : 1. At the same time laid 
King Herod hands upon certain of the 
congregation to vex them. 5. But 
prayer was made without ceasing of 
the congregation, unto God for him. 

Acts 13 : 1. There were at Antioch 
in the congregation, prophets and 
teachers. 

Acts 14 : 23. And when they had 
ordained them elders by election, 
through all the congregations. 

1 Cor. 4 : 17. Even as I teach every 
where, in all congregations, 

Heb. 12 : 22. But ye are come to the 
mount Sion, and to the city of the living 
God, to the celestial Jcusalem, and 
to the multitude of many thousand 
angels, and unto the congregation of 
the first born. 



GENEVAN. 

M.xt. 18 : 15. Moreover, if thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell him 
his fault between him and thee alone. If he hear thee, thou hast won thy 
brother. 

lo. But if lio hoar thee not, then take yet with thee one or two ; that by the 
mouth of two or three witnesses, all the matter may be confirmed. 

17. And if he will not vouchsafe to hear them, tell it unto the congregation. 
And if lie refuse to hear the congregation, let him be unto thee as an heathen 
man, and as a publican. 

Acttj 2 : 47. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. 

Acts 8 : 1. And at that time, there was a great persecution agamat the con- 
gregation which was at Jerusalem. 

Acts 11 : 22. Tiding of these things came unto the ears of the congregation 
v.iiich was in Jerusalem. 

2G. And it chanced that a whole year they had their converiatioo with tb9 
church thers. 



APPENDIX I. (continued.) 



463 



CRANMER. 
Mat. 18 : 15. Moreover, if thy brother 
trespass against thcc, go and tell him 
his lault 'beiwcen him and thee alone. 
If he hear thee thou hast won thy 
brother. But if he hear thee not, then 
take yet with thee one or two, that in 
the mouth or two or three witnesses, 
every matter may be stablished„ If he 
hear not them, tell it untft the congrega- 
tion. If he hear not the congregation, 
let him be to tTiee as an heathen man 
and as a publican. 



Acts 2 : 47. And the Lord added to 
the congregation daily such as should 
be saved. 

Acts 8 : 1. And at that time, there 
was a great persecution against the con- 
gregation which was at Jerusalem. 

Acts 11 : 22. Tidiness of these things 
came un'o the cars of the congregation 
which was in Jerusalem. 2o. And it 
chanced that a whole year they had 
their conversation with the congrega- 
tion there. 

Acts 12 : 1. At the same time Herod 
the King stretched forth bis hands to 
vex certain of the congregation. 5. But 
prayer was made without ceasing of 
the congregation unto God for him. 

Acts 13 : 1. There were in the con- 
gregation that is at Antioch, certain 
prophets and teachers. 

A^cts li : 23. And when they had 
ordained them elders by election in 
every congregation. 

1 Cor. 4~: 17. Even as I teach every 
where, in all congregations. 

Heb. 12 : 22. But ye are come un- 
to the mount Sion, and to the city 
of the living God, the celestial Jerusa- 
lem : and to an innumerable sight of 
angels, and unto the congregation of 
the first bom sons. 



BISHOPS. 

Mat. 18 : 15. Moreover, if thy bro- 
ther shall trespass against thee, go and 
tell him his fault between thee and him 
alone ; If he shall hear thee, thou hast 
Won thy brother. 

16. But if he will not hear thee, 
then take yet with thee one or two ; 
that in the mouth of two or three 
witnesses, every word may be stab- 
lished. 

17. If he will not hear them, tell it 
imto the church : if he will not hear 
the church, let him be unto thee as an 
heathen man and a publican. 

Acts 2 : 47. And the Lord added to 
the church daily such as should be 
saved. 

Acts 8 : 1. And at that time there 
was a great persecution against the 
church which was at Jerusalem. 

Acts 11 : 22. Then tidings of these 
things came unto the ears of the church 
which was in Jerusalem. 23. And it 
came to pass that a whole year they 
had their conversation with the church 
there. 

Acts 12 : 1. At the same time He- 
rod the King stretched forth his hands 
to vex certain of the church. 5. But 
prayer was made without ceasing of 
the church unto God for him. 

Acts 13 : 1. There was also in the 
church that was at Antioch, certain 
prophets and teachers. 

Acts 14 : 23. And when they had 
ordained them elders by election in 
■^very church. 

1 Cor. 4 : 17. As I teach every where 
in all churches. 

Heb. 12 : 22. But ye are come unto 
the mount Sion, and to the city of the 
living God, the celestial Jerusalem, 
and to an innumerable company of an- 
gels, 

23. And unto the congregation of 
the first born. 



GENEVAN. 

Acts 12 : 1. In that time, Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex 
certain of the congregation. 

5. But prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. 

Acts 13 : 1. There were in the congregation that was at Antioch, certain 
prophets and teachers. 

Acts 14 : 23. And when they had ordained them elders by election in every 
church. 

1 Cor. 4 : 17. Even as I teach every where in all congreg:itions. 

Heb. 12 : 22. But ye are come unto the mount Sion, and to the city of the 
living God, the celestial Jerusalem • and to the company of Innumerable angels, 

23. And to the congregation of ta© fijst born sona. 



464 APPENDIX II-III. 



APPENDIX II. 

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 

As this doctrine is of late claimed to have been the uitiversal sense of the Holy 
CathofiC Church in all ages, though not recognized by formal act, it may be in- 
teresting to hear Sir Thomas More s testimony on the point. It is contained in 
a letter from Margaret Roper to her sister-in-law, detailing an interview with 
her father in the Tower. She thus gives his words : 

" For an ensample of some such manner of things, I have I trow before this 
time told you, that whether our blessed lady were conceived in original sin or 
not, was sometime in great question among the great learned men of Christen- 
dom. And whether it be yet decided and determined by any general council, 
I remember not. But this I remember well, that notwithstanding that the feast 
of her conception was then celebrated in the church (at the least wise, in divers 
provinces), yet was holy St, Bernard, which, as his manifold books in the praise 
and laud of our lady do declare, was ot as devout affection toward all things 
sounding toward her commendation that he thought might well be verified or 
suffered, as any man living ; yet, I say, was that holy devout man against that 
part of her praise, as appeareth well by an epistle of his, wherein he right eoro 
and with great reason argueth there against, and approveth not the institution 
of that feast neither. Nor was he not of this mind alone, but many other well 
learned men with him, and right holy men too. Now there was on the other 
Bide, the blessed holy bishop St. Anselm, and he not alone neither, but many 
very wel! learned, and very virtuous also with him."— ATore's English Works, 
p. 143&. 



APPENDIX III. 

THE SOLDIER'S BIBLE. 

An account of this Bible, prepared in 1643 by Cromwell's order for the use of 
his army, has been published by George Livermore, Esq., Cambridge, Mass., by 
whose permission I quote from it the following particulars. 

'The Souldier's Pocket Bible' consisted of appropriate selections from the 
Scriptures, printed in a pamphlet form, on a single sheet folded in 16mo., and 
making sixteen pages. It was generally buttoned between the coat and th» 
vest, next the heart The title-page, printed within a neat border, reads as 
follows :— 



APPENDIX m. 465 



I THE I 



^ 
^ 



SOULDIERS I 

Pocket Bible: I 



0^ Containinpj the most (if not all) those ^ 
eg places contained in holy Scripture, ^ 
^^ Avhich doe shew the qualifications of his ^ 
c§ inner man, that is a fit Souldier to fight 3o 
^ the Lords Battels, both before he fight, ^ 
M in the fight, and after the fight ; %i 

^ Which Scriptures are reducsd to se- ^ 
°^ ^ 

c^ verall heads, and fitly applyed to the ^ 

J Souldiers severall occasions, and so may 2^ 

'^ supply the want of the whole Bible, g° 

(f. which a Souldier cannot conveniently Ja 

^ carry about him : 8^ 

c^ And may bee also usefull for any '^ 
^ Christian to meditate upon, now in |^ 
cS this miserable time of Warre. ^ 



^ Imprimatur, Edni. Calamy, ^ 



pg Jos. 18. This Book of the Law shall not depart ont ^ 
pg of thy mouth, but thou ehalt meditate therein day ^ 
^ and night, that thou raaist observe to doe accor- ^ 
^ dini? to all that is written therein, for then thou ^ 
^ shalt make thy way prosperous, and have good ^ 
J) Buccesse. X 



4^ 



o8 Printed at London by G. ^. and R. W. for 8° 



(?. C. 1 6 4 3 . I 



466 APPENDIX m. ^ ^ "C 

f 

" The selections from Scripture are divided into eighteen chapters, each with 
an appropriate heading to indicate the class of Scriptures contained therein. A 
few examples of these headings or titles will sufficiently show their general 
character. 

1. A Souldier must not doe wickedly. 

2. A Souldier must be valiant for God's cause. 

3. A Souldier must pray before he go to fight." 

Mr. L. refers to the remarkable fact, "that the success of Cromwell's army 
commenced immediately on the publication of The Souldier s Pocket Bible ; 
and they never after lost a battle !" 

Only two copies of this curious work are now known to be in existence, one 
of which is in the possession of Mr. Livermore. The other has but recently 
come to light in England. On this point, I take the liberty of making the follow- 
ing interesting extract from a recent letter from Mr. L. " It is quitje remarkable, 
that the question concerning the 'Souldier's Bible' should be answered on this 
side of the Atlantic. English Bibliographers have never been able, till the past 
year, to decide what edition of the Bible was furnished to Cromwell's array ; 
and the existence of 'The Souldier's Bible' was unknown, until I had sent a de- 
Bcription of it to Rev. Dr. Cotton, George Offor, Esq., Henry Stevens, Esq., and 
other eminent English Bibliographers. This little w^ork was entirely unknown to 
them. After a long and diligent search in various public and private libraries, 
only one other copy has been found, and that is in the British Museum." 

On another point of interest, in reply to an enquiry of mine, he says : " The 
selections from Scripture are, in almost every instance^ taken from- the Genevan 
Version ; but in some cases, a very few. King James' Version Ms been used. 
In a few cases, the phraseology varies slightly from all the English Versions 
which I have examined." 

This is an interesting corroborative testimony to the preference of our Purl- 
tan forefathers for the Genevan Version (see p. 3G7), so late as 1613. 



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